Crash & Burn
by piraticalifornia
Summary: [Episode VII Spoilers] When their stolen TIE fighter crashes on Jakku, Finn thinks Poe didn't make it out. But Poe is alive, and someone finds him. A Niima Outpost Militia rookie with nothing to lose teams up with the star fighter pilot with everything to lose, unknowing how thoroughly her quest for revenge will tie her to the Resistance, to him, and to an uncertain future.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm sooo not a hard-core Star Wars aficionado, just have always casually enjoyed the movies and really loved TFA so please excuse my total lack of technical Star Wars knowledge, or really any knowledge...this is just for fun. AU-ish. I own nothing you recognize.**

 _Outskirts of Tuanul, Jakku_

If these Force worshipers didn't get out of her face soon, Tali was going to lose her damn mind. Sure they meant well, they were harmless enough, and her father harbored a soft spot for the religious group for some reason... but Tali just couldn't understand them. How could the Church of the Force members wax on about rightness and balance and being "in touch with nature" when there were so many other more important things to worry about? More _real_ concerns?

They had always seemed just a bit self-righteous and silly to her. Especially since Tali had become more familiar with the grittier aspects of life on their desert planet in recent years.

With their communal heads in the proverbial clouds (there were seldom true clouds in a land this dry), no wonder the Church members were always having problems with their self-made technology. She sighed. Being the youngest member (still a "wet-behind-the-ears rookie," as her father routinely emphasized to her chagrin) of the Niima Outpost Militia meant that she was stuck tagging along with her father on his boring humanitarian trips around Jakku, instead of helping the humorless but fair Constable Zuvio keep order and run off pirates at the Outpost full-time.

Just now, Tali was heading towards the Church's communal moisture farm on the outskirts of their settlement to inspect a defective vaporator. Naturally, their home-made tech patch job on the old tower had failed. Now it was up to her as a member of the planet's rag-tag peacekeeping and emergency force to come to the rescue and try to ensure the harmless nut-jobs didn't die of dehydration. While not the best mechanic on the planet, she was versed enough in standard technology and came equipped with enough spare parts (obtained from Unkar Plutt via strained negotiation) to be useful.

Unfortunately, Tali's role as tech fixer-upper also meant being subjected to a miniature sermon on the ways of the Force and the benefits that would come from her potential conversion as two residents guided her around the settlement. Her Militia officer father Barro Zev was sympathetic to their beliefs, even enjoying his occasional visits to Tuanul to discuss religion. But Tali didn't share this philosophical bent... perhaps a remnant of her father's seldom-discussed past as a guardsman on a more civilized planet.

Regardless, as the setting sun beat down on her veiled head and the religious villagers' talk went in one of her ears and out the other, Tali wasn't feeling it. She'd rather be back with Zuvio helping to keep the chaotic inhabitants of the Outpost (somewhat) in line. Or even with her dad and the Church leaders discussing settlement defense and the ever-encroaching threat from pirates and other unfriendly desert dwellers. She rolled her goggles-covered eyes heavenward in quiet exasperation as they reached the defunct moisture vaporator.

Then, with a start, she focused upwards more intently as a low droning filled the air. That...was a ship. No, a... starfighter? Her dad had talked about those, described the distinctive cross shape. And it was coming towards the village fast. The two villagers next to her stopped lecturing and gasped their surprise. Ah, shit, there was potential trouble, and she was way out here. Tali grabbed the old-fashioned communicator from her belt.

"Father, the fighter, what is it-should I return to the village?"

There was only static for a few tense moments as Tali watched a dust cloud form and settle from the craft's landing (an apparently excellent one, as much as she could tell from this distance).

The communicator crackled to life. "Ah... no. No, I recognize these colors. Stay put, Tali, we're fine. This is a surprise, but I don't expect trouble." Tali bit her lip in frustration. A starfighter was _exciting_ , and dad was telling her an overtaxed vaporator was more important? _C'mon old man._

"But _father_ , I-"

"Tali." Barro's voice was firm. Tali thought she might have heard the mutterings of village leader and friend of her father Lor San Tekka amongst the indistinct background noises. "Stay on task. The visitor is an ally. The village's moisture supply remains more important at the moment." He disconnected abruptly, and Tali's brow furrowed.

 _Damn it._ Who knew how long this repair would take, and when was the next time she would have the opportunity to see a starfighter pilot? Still, she knew when her father's tone of voice slipped into a superior officer's tone of voice and allowed no argument. She grudgingly placed her communicator back on her hip, dropping her pack full of tools and machinery parts at her feet somewhat more forcefully than necessary.

Tali pushed her dusty goggles down to hang around her neck and glanced over at the villagers, who eyed her expectantly. She motioned towards the settlement with one arm, wiping her forehead with the other. "It appears you have a visitor. A friendly one." One of the villagers, a man of about thirty years, excitedly peered towards the starfighter with wide eyes. Tali, still disappointed but ever-practical, saw her opening for some much-desired respite from the ardent Force believers. "Oh, don't let me keep you out here if you're curious."

The middle-aged female villager smiled and shuffled slightly back towards the settlement but then hesitated, glancing at Tali. "You don't need assistance with the machine? Or company?"

Tali fought the urge to roll her eyes. " _Assistance" in the form of more home-made junk or conversion speeches? Not hardly._ She forced a small smile. "Oh no... I can manage the vaporator. Thank you."

With a few more half-hearted platitudes, the villagers departed, hastening on their long walk back to the village. Tali enviously watched them leave for a moment, then pried open the vaporator tower's control panel, scowling into the overheated machinery as she unzipped her pack. _Another day in paradise._

More than an hour into diagnosis and repair, and the sky had darkened entirely. Tali shivered in the quickly cooling desert air, pulling the sleeves of her tan Militia member tunic further down around her hands. She made another attempt to jumpstart the vaporator, giving a short cry of triumph when it hummed to life and wiping her greasy hands on her leggings. _Finally._

The noise of the vaporator momentarily drowned out that of the approaching First Order assault landers. But the sound of an approaching shuttle and blaster fire were unmistakeable. As the explosions started, Tali leapt to her feet in panic, banging her shoulder on the open control panel door with a wince and frantically grabbing her staff and communicator.

"Father! What's happening?! I'm coming-" Tali cursed her decision to go to the moisture farm on foot as she took off for the village at a dead run. She could make out columns of smoke and fire beginning to sprout already. Sweat broke out on her face as she ran. Screams and static issued from her communicator, then her father's voice came through, breaking up with crackling and panic.

"Tali!...Too many...help the villagers..." Piercing cracks of blaster fire emerged in the distance and sounded through Tali's communicator, spurring her on.

She heaved breaths, the sounds of the village being destroyed and the view of shining white stormtrooper armor growing clearer. "Father!" Tali choked out the word, struggling through the sandy terrain. She supposed she was glad to not have worn her heavy Militia armor pieces out to the farm since her relatively unencumbered state gave her extra speed... but Tali wished fervently that she'd thought to stash it somewhere nearer than on their damn speeder, parked in the middle of the bloody village.

Her father's strained voice crackled through her communicator again, "...too many, Tali...take villagers and retreat...run...you're too young..."

Tali neared the encampment, slowing her hell-bent pace to determine a strategy while searching for her father's tell-tale auburn hair. "Dad! No, _we_ can get out..." Tali breathlessly took cover behind a wooden pillar, reaching for the aged blaster at her back with shaking hands. She was a policewoman in training, a harried keeper of the peace on this backwater junkyard of a planet, and had never actually fired the weapon with the intent to kill. Instead, she generally relied on the authority of her weighty barbed staff.

Her finger slipped on the gun's safety once, but taking a breath, she steeled herself. She bent around the pillar, taking aim at the nearest stormtrooper before spotting her father several encampments away, crouched behind a dwelling with his friend Tekka and firing at the attackers.

"Father!" Tali screamed out amidst the chaos of a landing command shuttle as stormtroopers closed in on them. Her father valiantly attempted to fight them off, felling several but ultimately proving no match for their sheer numbers. Tali fired at the troopers steadily, watching in disbelief as Tekka stood up to confront the force head on and was immediately captured. _The fuck_ _are you doing?!_

But then her father was unceremoniously shot in the gut, and any questions about the elder Church member's motivations evaporated.

Tali's vision tunneled. Agonized, she screamed in horror at the scene, emerging from her pillar and firing wildly at stormtroopers as her father fell to his knees. He met Tali's eyes briefly, mouthing what may have been her name as blood spread from his wound, disturbingly scarlet on the light fabric of his simple tunic. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth-she could see his eyes going glassy from here.

Tali's blood roared in her ears as she struggled towards her father while felling enemy soldiers, livid and panicked. But she didn't make it to him. A bolt of blaster fire snagged her arm as another destroyed a nearby shelter. It caused the structure's wooden pillar to splinter and it careened into the side of her head, forcing her to the ground.

Disoriented and blind with tears of pain and rage, Tali struggled out from under the debris with one arm, still attempting to reach her father while knowing the futility.

Then a stormtrooper was shot away just above her. Tali barely made out the concerned, intent face of the stranger who had covered for her, a dark-featured man in a leather jacket, before unwillingly sinking into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Tali awoke to light and pain. She abruptly came to, clenching her teeth and hoping for a vague moment that the lasers and fire, that oh god _her father_ , were just part of a terrible dream. She groaned at the dull pounding on the left side of her head and the sharp pain that sliced down her right arm when she tried to move it, struggling to free herself completely from the debris of the destroyed village that still covered her lower half.

Coughing, she blearily gazed through the morning's lingering smoke and her eyes struggled to adjust to the utter carnage. Bodies. A pile of mutilated bodies in the center of the village, partially scorched by blaster fire, so shockingly disturbing that she almost overlooked her father's crumpled form. As she struggled on her knees to him, a hoarse cry tore from her throat. How could this happen? Why would such a force attack the relatively defenseless and peaceful Church of the Force village? It seemed so senseless and so surreal that her life had changed so abruptly in just hours.

Reaching her father with a choked, dry sob, Tali cradled his lifeless face in the crook of her good arm. _Why._ Why did he have to be here in the village when this atrocity occurred? Why couldn't she have been faster, more capable, a better shot? They weren't prepared for this. They were used to fighting unruly inhabitants, not a trained army. Why did this happen?

"Daddy, I'm so sorry." Tali struggled to comprehend the devastation. She turned around, searching for a sign of life, for anyone else who was spared from the flames by the immutability of the desert sands. She caught sight of the remnants of the stranger's starfighter. _The pilot._ Her raw eyes narrowed. Who the hell was he? Did he draw the stormtrooper army here? She inwardly seethed and despaired in turn. If so, she hoped he was dead. But she vaguely remembered the deep-set, dark eyes of the stranger who kept her from being shot point-blank by an advancing stormtrooper… the one who now lay feet from where she had been trapped. Maybe he kept her from dying. _But maybe_ , she swallowed her dry throat convulsively and struggled not to heave vomit into the sand, _maybe I should be dead. Father. All these villagers._ He had wanted her to save them, try to help them escape. There were women and children who died because she had failed. She had taken out a paltry number of stormtroopers and been taken out easily…had been an easier target for her heedless rage and despair.

With a ragged breath and a lingering touch to her father's bloodless and stiffening face, Tali struggled to her feet. Then, staggering away from the pile of villagers' bodies, she was forced to double over, dry heaving. She straightened slowly. Painfully. She grit her teeth, feeling her bloody shoulder, then raising her good arm to feel the matted blood in her hair and on the scarf that had fallen around her neck, giving her a sunburned face for good measure.

Shuddering, Tali turned back towards her father. Towards the villagers. She couldn't just leave them. Considering, she amended her thoughts—she couldn't just leave _him._ Her father had raised her alone for most of her life, had been her tough, fair companion. Her mother, whom her father had seldom talked about but whom he had always seemed to consider too good for their junkyard planet, had died when Tali was a child and she barely remembered her fair hair and gentle hands. Her father had the burden of raising a girl child in the desert wasteland alone while performing his peacekeeping duties as Militia member, and she had wanted to be like him, struggling through odd jobs in Outpost shops until she was big and old enough to begin training with weapons, to join Constable Zuvio's team with him. She bit back a cry as she looked at her father. He didn't deserve to die in this unceremonious heap in this godforsaken corner of the desert. He deserved a proper burial, recognition.

She considered her options, setting out in the direction of their speeder, skirting around the pile of bodies and struggling not to look at the mangled villagers. The stormtroopers' bodies were easier to ignore. She couldn't see their faces, could pretend that they were just armor, just robots.

She came to a halt at the twisted and charred metal shape that was formerly their vehicle, now destroyed by fire. Gingerly, she picked through the debris for her armor, finding that only the forearm pieces were undamaged enough to wear. She kicked the smoldering speeder remnants with a clang and raged at the sky, letting loose a strangled cry. Her throat was too parched to scream properly. She wished she could scream for each of the villagers, for her father, for her shame and pain.

Taking in a shaking breath, Tali's head dropped to her chest. She needed to tie her arm into a makeshift sling. She needed to search through the rubble for water or return to the now-functional moisture vaporator. She needed to determine whether there was a working vehicle that remained in the village. And she needed to bury her father.

 _Later_

It was difficult to dig with one arm, but after wrapping her arm in a ripped strip of tent linen and finding a suitably shovel-like piece of metal, Tali managed to dig her father a shallow grave, hoping it was deep enough that the meat wouldn't be scavenged from his bones. She kicked over rocks with which to cover his body. The villagers' bodies were starting to smell, so with a whispered wish that they would find peace in death as part of the Force that they put so much faith in, Tali unceremoniously covered them in machine oil and burned the pile, sending plumes of smoke skyward and hoping that perhaps a member of Zuvio's team would notice their absence and follow the pillar of acrid smoke. Their group was not exactly carefully regimented or close-knit, however, so Tali didn't put terribly much stake in that prospect. People often went missing in this backwater, criminal-ridden wasteland she considered a home planet.

She hoped that there were some members of the village who had fled to the hills and survived the slaughter. If there were, they were slow to return to the scene. Tali, out of ideas and without useable transportation or communication abilities, gathered what supplies she could scavenge and started the long trek back towards Niima Outpost. She had only been walking a few hours when she heard the crash.

At first, absorbed in her thoughts of fire and death, she thought it might have been her imagination. But as the plume of smoke came into view through her goggles, she realized that yet another fiery disaster had occurred. Not her disaster, however. Not one that she was responsible for. And she didn't feel that she needed to involve herself in any more of them. Still, the officer in her was curious as to whether someone needed help, and the cutthroat side of her wondered whether there would be anything she could use (or any stormtroopers she could kill) among the wreckage. She grudgingly changed direction, heading towards the dark cloud.

Still largely consumed with despair, it took Tali a moment to recognize the tall, wavering shape on the sand dunes to be a man staggering in her direction. Longer still to recognize it not as a mirage or the accusatory ghost of her father, but a dark-haired, bloody mess of a man in a light shirt and dark pants, struggling to remain upright. When he finally clutched at his head and crumpled, Tali halted. Blinked. Squinted behind her goggles. Then finally she hastened forward, stumbling, holding her injured arm in its makeshift sling close to her body.

Approaching him more slowly, she surveyed his limp form, his face mostly buried in the shifting sand. The blood in his hair, his torn and singed clothes, and his stillness made her wince. _Great. Another dead body._ At least this one she didn't feel responsible for. No one could survive a crash like that. Maybe there was something useful in his pockets? The thought made her cringe inwardly. _I sound like a bloody pirate._ The sort of uncaring folk that she was supposed to be more upright than. That…she blinked quickly. That _her father_ raised her to be more upright than. Tali swallowed. On the other hand…she gave herself a mental shake. _Desperate times._

The shallow rise of the man's surprisingly alive, breathing chest brought Tali simultaneous relief and apprehension. He was clearly not a threat in this sorry state, but she worried anew about his origins and intentions. Although of middling height, he appeared fairly powerfully built, and while she, as a peacekeeping force on the planet, wanted to lend aid where needed, she also would be potentially responsible for doling out punishment when due. Armed with her trusted staff and a blaster (albeit one running low on energy), she was fairly confident that she could overpower him if he turned out to be a bad character…but she also recognized, especially after her perceived failures at the village, that she was just a rookie. And he was quite a bit bigger than her. She bit a chapped lip. Still, she couldn't very well kill a comatose, probably concussed man in cold blood. He wasn't a stormtrooper, at least.

She examined his clothing. Plain. And bloody, in bad shape. Didn't really seem like a pirate either, at least not a member of one of the well-known, distinctive groups like Kanjiklub. She tugged at his belt. No weapon? Curious for an explorer of these lands. Poking at the dried blood in his thick dark hair, she started when he let out a slight moan. She sighed. This man was too pitiful to be dangerous.

Heaving a bit since she only had the use of one arm, she flipped him over so at least he wouldn't be clogging his lungs up with sand. As her eyes rose to his face, she sucked in a breath, yanking her goggles down to her neck and lowering the scarf from her lower face in the process. _Was it-?_ She frantically brushed the sand from his face with her sleeve, revealing the dark features, the deep eyes of her hazy pre-passing out vision, bloody but recognizable. _The stranger._ Her eyes narrowed. _The pilot._ The one who presumably led the stormtrooper army to Tuanul. To _her father._ Hand poised at the blaster in her waistband, she stilled. _Yet he might have saved my life._ Her hand twitched towards her blaster again. _A life not worth saving. So many were killed_.

But his dark brows twitched and he drew in a shuddering breath with clenching hands, and she reconsidered again. He did look awful... she considered the shadows under his eyes, his tense face. Clearly his last couple days were not pleasant. Her father _had_ indicated that he was an ally, before…everything happened. And he had fought the invading army. _The enemy of my enemy…_

Tali sighed for what felt like the millionth time in the last few days and gingerly unshouldered her pack. She would at least give him a chance to explain and defend himself. If he lived, that is. She awkwardly searched through her bag one-handed for water, finally finding it and cleaning the wound in his hair with her sleeve. It was certainly more than a scratch, but didn't seem life-threatening. She wondered if he had passed out for some other reason? Dehydration? Rubbing away the blood from the cut on his face next, she then tried to sit him up and feed him some water from her canteen, grimacing when much of it ended up in the sand. She could almost laugh, if she didn't feel as much like crying in frustration. _The crippled helping the comatose: a study in awkwardness_.

Brushing water from his jaw, which sported the beginnings of a beard, Tali studied his face sans blood. It was a nice face, she supposed, although she had met enough creatures throughout Jakku to understand that physical beauty did not necessarily coincide with kindliness. She ran her eyes over his features. Strong jaw, heavy brow, prominent and crooked nose. Deep-set eyes. A face that might be almost too rough considering the separate features, but which came altogether in a pleasantly harmonious, masculine way. She peered at him, a bit upside-down from where she was holding him up in order to make him upright enough to drink, and reached to brush his hair back. Maybe not a criminal? A good pilot. Maybe…

A yawning, grating crash shook Tali out of her reverie and she dropped the pilot unceremoniously, scrambling upright. _What…?!_ She whirled around. _The crash._ Taking a moment to consider and then gathering her supplies, she turned towards the former smoke plume, now oddly disappearing. For a moment she thought she heard someone yelling, but shook her head…the wind whistling over the dunes could play tricks on one's ears. She glanced back at the pilot. Would he be alright there? Could she find him again? After an inward debate, Tali unwound the scarf from her head and tied it thinly around his face, attempting to drag him into a more upright position against a sand dune. There, at least he wouldn't choke to death on swirling sand.

By the time she had hiked up the dune towards the presumed crash site, it seemed to have… disappeared? Squinting through her goggles, Tali perceived a few remaining chunks of the unknown craft, some of which were oddly…stark white? But when one of the larger pieces groaned and sank into the sand in front of her, she realized what had happened and decided to beat a hasty retreat for fear of sinking into the shifting sand herself. She climbed back in the pilot's direction as the sun set, struggling to spot him for a moment before catching sight of his dark hair half covered in sand.

She hastened down the dune, setting her pack up to block the windblown sand as best she could and then propping the pilot up again, reclaiming her scarf from around his face and retying it around her own. It had managed to pick up his scent, of leather, blood, sweat, and a more pleasant underlying tone of something vaguely like cinnamon. It surprised her. She peered at him narrowly, sitting down close. _Are you gonna wake up, Pilot?_ Tali's gaze then shifted to their surroundings. _Shelter would be nice._ She eyed him, wondering if she could drag him across the sand if she found a cave or something. _Probably not one-armed._ She poked his side with a booted foot. _Or maybe I should just leave you for dead and press on._ Sighing, she leaned back and watched the last rays of sunlight disappear and darkness creep in.

As Tali fitfully dozed, pictures of fire and death playing in her mind and making her twitch, she heard vague movement. Snapping awake into chilly darkness, she scrambled up and grabbed for her staff with her good hand, holding the business end in the vicinity of the pilot's throat as he seemed to shake off his stupor. Gasping and clutching at the sand slightly, he reached a hand towards his dark head. Forcing open the deepest pair of brown eyes Tali had ever seen, the pilot took a second to register the staff pointed at his neck and the compact person wielding it. As Tali watched him warily, his brows furrowed, followed by a cough and a gravelly voice.

"…the fuck?!"


	3. Chapter 3

Poe's first thoughts upon waking concerned the throbbing pain in his head, closely followed by a growing concern over where he was and… who in blazes was that?

"…the fuck?!" He didn't realize he'd voiced the exasperated thought aloud at first, but the veiled creature standing above him tilted its head minutely and brought the sharp end of its staff slightly closer to his bare throat, indicating that it heard him. And Poe realized that yes, the expletive _exactly_ mirrored his feelings, and as the memories came rushing back— _I'm alive…Jakku…Kylo Ren…the map…escape_ —god _damn_ it but he wondered why fate couldn't have given him just a _little bit_ of a boost on this mission considering the spectacular clusterfuck it had quickly become, and maybe delivered him into the hands of someone friendly instead of someone with a giant goddamned stick pointed at his throbbing face? _That would be too easy._

Well, at least he'd managed to—sort of—land the TIE fighter, coming to just in the nick of time after they were hit and he was momentarily knocked out by the blast. At least he wasn't a smoking pile of rubble. The thought sobered him. Did Finn make it out? The sun had apparently set, and it momentarily disoriented Poe. How much time had passed? How much time wasted in his search for BB-8? He suppressed a shudder at the memory of Kylo Ren's mental invasion and the pain when his mind finally snapped under the onslaught. Physical torture was one thing, but Ren's attack had been… horrible in an entirely new way. _They know_. Now it was a race to find his beloved, wayward droid.

Poe narrowed his eyes against his headache, clenching his fists experimentally and peering up at the dark-clad being. It— _she?_ —cleared its throat and adjusted its tense grip on the staff minutely, drawing it back a tiny bit in response to his lack of immediate attack. It seemed like it was about to speak, and Poe saw his opening. His head hurt, he was sick of being under other people's control, _under Ren's control_ , and he had had a really fucking bad couple of days. His ship—his _baby_ —had been blown up, he'd been tortured, his mind had been ransacked, his initial mission had gone haywire and he had to find BB-8 and recover that map before the First Order did… _and is the stormtrooper traitor… Finn… still alive?_ _Solid guy. Could've done a better job of covering our escape though._ He forced his thoughts back to the present.

Poe, generally an easygoing guy, was simply in no mood for this shit. A split second analysis revealed the being was cradling its ( _her?_ ) right arm—which with any luck was the dominant one. He made his decision, springing to action and knocking the staff aside, gripping it and harshly knocking it into the being's side while simultaneously sweeping his leg under hers from the other side, causing her to topple onto her busted shoulder. With a shriek too high pitched to be anything but female, she twisted around to fall more on her back and protect her right arm, letting go of her staff to reach around and draw her blaster, bringing it up to point at Poe.

Gritting his teeth against the throbbing in his head, Poe swept up her staff horizontally with both hands and knocked it into her good arm that held the gun, climbing half over her. In desperation, the female ripped her wounded right arm out of its makeshift sling and swung her heavy armor gauntlet against Poe's head, taking him by surprise and sending him reeling with renewed pain. He spit out a vile curse as she tried to scramble away and lunged after her before she could get the blaster in position to shoot him, bringing the staff down heavily horizontally across her shoulders, trapping her arms and immobilizing her weapon.

As she brought her knees towards his groin in a last-ditch attempt to dislodge him, Poe immobilized her legs, twisting to grip them with his own. "Oh, no no no," he grunted out dryly, eyeing her blaster, "not today." He squinted against the pain in his head, shaking his head slightly to clear the growing blackness from the edges of his vision. _Solid hit she got there_. He rubbed at his sweaty face with one shoulder. "Hey, you wanna simmer down and drop the blaster and I'll think about getting this stick out your face. Don't go trying shit with me, today ain't the day, alright?" The female, heaving panicked breaths under the weight of his solid hold, stopped struggling.

As her fingers loosened on the blaster (an older model, Poe noted), he examined her clothing for the first time, taking in the dark tunic and light headscarf. Laying a forearm on the staff across her chest, he reached up with the other hand to tug her scarf and goggles down and reveal the upper part of her face. Angry eyes with dark lashes and furrowed, thick eyebrows greeted him.

"I wasn't planning to hurt you," she accused testily in a muffled voice, strong and on the lower end of the spectrum for a woman, but shaky with pain…or maybe fear. Shining in the light of the bright moon, he noticed moisture gathering in her eyes and sighed, easing up on the staff a bit and ripping the scarf off her face completely, taking in the freckles on her pale nose and cheeks and her unhappily bowed mouth. He frowned in surprise. She looked...almost elfin, with a delicate bone structure, and very young, with a jaw that would be quite square but retained a youthful softness. Recognition hit. He swallowed, dry throat working. _So young_. Had she been at Tuanul…? He remembered those eyes. She had been the one struck down after firing at stormtroopers wildly, right before he'd been captured. He had assumed everyone in the village had been killed but she must've made it out somehow, maybe the troopers assumed she was already dead.

He again took in the tunic, the staff, the militant armored gauntlets, and her disconcertingly young and ethereal face. Hadn't the military policeman guy with Tekka mentioned a trainee? _Bingo_. Letting out a breath, Poe ran his free hand through his disheveled locks. "Ah hell, kid, what were you thinking holding your stick at me like that? You're Outpost Militia, right?"

Her eyes narrowed angrily and her teeth gritted as he accidentally knocked into her injured arm while removing himself from over her person, keeping her staff in his grip. He guiltily realized as he considered the rigidity in her body and the way she glared that the tears gathering in her stormy eyes were probably a result of physical pain, not emotional weakness. He rose to his feet warily.

"I'm a trainee, I'm not a child. And I didn't _want_ to hurt you," she repeated harshly, vibrant eyes accusatory and scowling. "I just… didn't know what to expect." His brows furrowed, and he held out a hand to help her up, but she ignored it, choosing to scramble up on her own and shuffle away from him a few steps. As the girl rose, yanking her scarf back up and over her nose and mouth and favoring her right arm, Poe noted her slight build and small stature. _No wonder the kid veils herself and overcompensates with aggression. Who would take her seriously with that face?_ The girl, probably noticing his scoffing look at her unassuming appearance, snarled, "who the hell are you, pilot? Why were those stormtroopers" she faltered and a deeply pained look entered her eyes, nearly invisible in the night, "drawn here?"

Hackles rising along with his returning headache at her aggressive tone, Poe's dark eyes narrowed. He dropped his proffered hand and stuck the butt of her staff into the sand to his right with a harsh thrust. "Thanks for the gracious welcome, _peacekeeper_. I've happened to lose something on this ass-backward rock and need it bloody returned as soon as possible so I can get the hell out." She gave a nearly imperceptible flinch at his sarcastically angry words. He sighed, softening his tone a bit and turning his attention to the surrounding dunes, "I'm sorry about your village. The First Order supreme assholes won't stop destroying until they get what they're after—which is coincidentally what _I'm_ after—and, ah, before they beat me to the party… great talk, kid. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a TIE fighter to recover…" he trailed off, noticing what he was wearing for the first time. "…The fuck is my jacket?" Poe mumbled distractedly, running a hand through his hair and searching the surrounding sand, ignoring the girl's indignant muttering about not being a child.

"…There's nothing to recover," came her slightly muffled voice, louder. Poe looked up sharply. "I saw the smoke from the crash and followed it but… you landed in sinking sands. The fighter is gone, it... sank." She finished lamely.

Poe brought a hand to his forehead in frustration, then turned to her, taking a few swift steps until they were almost touching. She tensed, moving to shift away from him, but he grabbed her good elbow, bringing their faces closer. "Did you see anyone besides me exit the crash?" Poe asked rapidly, voice low and intense. "I was flying with a tall man, dark skin, stormtrooper armor—" She ripped her arm away, taking shaking steps back and grabbing for her staff.

"A stormtrooper?!" She spit out the word like a curse, "I thought the First Order was your enemy!" She yanked her staff out of the sand, brandishing it menacingly at him while continuing to shuffle backwards. Realizing his mistake, Poe held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, hey, easy kid…he was a First Order traitor, a defector." He wished he could see her face, see how serious she was about hitting him with that big stick of hers. The throbbing in his head was amping up and he wasn't sure if he could successfully wrestle it away from her again without the element of surprise. _Ah, fuck it_. So much for the "top secret" nature of this clusterfuck mission.

"I'm a commander with the Resistance. The name's Poe Dameron."


	4. Chapter 4

The fight started to ease out of the girl's stance at Poe's explanation of his Resistance position, and she lowered her staff. "The Resistance?" Her voice was less aggressive and more hopeful, "of course…" She bent down to pick up her dropped blaster and Poe tensed, but she simply brushed off the sandy weapon and tucked it at the small of her back almost absently, moving towards where her pack sat on the dune.

"You're working against the First Order, the ones who attacked? My father talked about the Resistance. And the Rebels before them." A troubled look passed over her face before she looked up, meeting his eyes. Poe nodded.

She shifted uncomfortably and looked away again. "But as far as your companion is concerned… I haven't seen anyone else. I'm sorry." _Damn._ His heart plummeted. _Finn probably didn't make it_. The girl toed at the sand with one foot. "My job is to keep order and lend aid. When I saw you collapse, I sort of stopped looking, and didn't investigate the crash until later." She brought her veiled face up to meet his eyes again. "You looked…I thought you were dead. I tried giving you water, but I didn't know if you'd wake up, or who you were, or how you were connected with the stormtroopers. But you kept a trooper from shooting me back in Tuanul, so I felt like I owed you. Thank you."

Poe swallowed uncomfortably. Maybe he had shot some stormtroopers… and he did remember taking one out right before it finished her off. He'd noticed her eyes as she fell. But he'd been more worried about covering BB-8's escape than saving villagers, he acknowledged guiltily. It was all about the end game, his mission, and he'd quite frankly been less concerned with protecting and helping those innocent people.

Poe thought briefly about his escape from the First Order's star destroyer, about Finn's admission that he was aiding him because he needed a pilot to facilitate his own escape. People, especially the sort of people with whom he associated, seldom chose to do something just because it was the right thing to do. _But the Resistance is right,_ he firmly mentally reasoned.

Yet this girl had chosen to help him—a ratty, bloody stranger who didn't really give a shit about her planet or its people. And he had repaid her with a hard knock to the ground and a new set of bruises. He ran a hand through his wavy hair. "Hey…uh, no need to thank me—I was just doing my job. Or trying to. Thank _you_ , kid. I'm sorry about the, ah… misunderstanding." He thought she might be raising one wry eyebrow at him beneath her scarf. "What's your name?"

She drew herself up a bit, straightening her unhurt left arm at her side. "Taliya Zev. Niima Outpost Militia member, serving under Constable Zuvio." Her posture sagged slightly. "You can call me Tali. …And for the last time, I'm not a kid," she finished tiredly. Poe's lips twitched. "Alright, Officer…Tali." He watched her gather her pack, drawing closer. "Forgive me, but how old are you?"

Tali's eyes narrowed. "I'm 24, not that it's any of your business, Commander."

Poe was mildly surprised. That was young, but not as young as her face had appeared to him. Maybe he had been around hardened Resistance fighters too long. "No offense meant, Officer Tali. I'm real glad you didn't choose to leave me to the scavengers." His lips curved in a slight smile, and he stuck out his hand. "Please, call me Poe. Pleasure to meet you on this fine desert evening."

Tali looked askance at his light tone for a long moment, then gingerly held out her uninjured left hand towards his right one with a sarcastically murmured "…pleasure." He realized the awkward mismatch and brought both of his hands up, clasping hers between them, fingers reaching to her thin wrist. Her hand was cool and rough with callouses and sand, and he bent his head to hold her shadowed eyes with his own. _Pretty._ He couldn't tell their color in the moonlight.

She shifted her eyes away from his and Poe allowed her to slip her hand out of his grip, finding himself mildly disappointed at the loss of contact. He snapped his attention back to the mission. _The map. BB-8._ He had very limited knowledge of this backwater junkyard planet and seriously doubted his chances of finding BB-8 while wandering aimlessly around the desert. Not to mention the fact that he was unarmed, with no supplies. He was smart enough to know when a mission was fucked up beyond his abilities to handle it solo, and this was certainly one of those times. The Resistance would be able to help him locate BB-8. He had to get back and contact General Organa, give her the bad news. _Fuck_. This mission had certainly not provided the most shining evidence of his competency.

Poe glanced wryly at the surrounding dunes, then his eyes focused back on Tali's hooded form. "If you wouldn't mind helping my sorry ass out yet again, I'd really appreciate some water if you can spare it, and a point in the direction of the nearest town. I need to borrow a ship and get back to the Resistance, fast…like, yesterday."

Tali shifted her pack on her good shoulder and eyed him. "You're going to fight the First Order?" Poe nodded, and Tali continued, "There's a town and a guy with a ship I know a couple days' hike from here." She motioned over her shoulder. Her voice grew shaky with anger. "But I'm coming with you. I want to see those animals destroyed. The Order has to pay for their assault on Tuanul, for all those villagers, for…" Her voice trailed off.

Poe sighed, running a hand over his face. "No can do, kid—" Tali bristled at the return of the dismissive moniker, and Poe held up his hands, giving her an apologetic look. "Hey, sorry. Even if you were a fully trained warrior, the Resistance base is secret. I can't just go inviting people in. 'Sides, don't you have to hold down order in this junkyard, Officer?" He emphasized her title pointedly, brushing past her to start off in the direction she had pointed. _A couple days, huh?_ It might be a bit touch and go, but he could probably make the trip without supplies. And if there was a town, there would doubtless be someone he could talk out of a ship. He could be quite persuasive. This soft— _pretty_ —girl didn't belong in the sort of fight he was about to enter. She probably had a family here. _A boyfriend?_ He swiftly shook his thoughts out of that direction. _She helped me out of a tight spot and pointed me in the right direction—that's it, that's all I need to know about her._

"Wait!" Tali hurried after him, reaching for his arm. "Please… they killed my father." Poe halted, shoulders tensing. He knew well what it felt like to lose a parent. Both of them, in his case. What it was to be alone. "I was _right there_ and I couldn't stop it…" her voice, initially fierce, grew more forced and painful. "…I wasn't good enough to stop them." His eyes closed at the raw pain in her voice. "I want to come with you and fight those bastards. I'll gladly join the Resistance, to help destroy the First Order. I need to… my father. He was…all I have." Her voice grew softer. "Please. …There's nothing left."

Poe sighed, turning towards her and closing his hand over hers where it gripped his tan forearm in order to pull it off of him, but hesitated when he saw the stark desperation in her eyes. "I'm sorry," he intoned quietly. The Militia man with Lor San Tekka… was that her father, not just a fellow officer? He hadn't realized. He gently removed her hand, holding onto it _maybe_ a second or two longer than strictly necessary. He wasn't the sentimental type or anything, but… _War fucking sucks._

"And you need supplies, I have supplies!" Tali continued, sounding slightly panicked, apparently taking his soft reply as a refusal. "And you need a guide. There's sinking sand in this area, but I know the desert, I can lead us around it. And get us a ship—cash in a favor." She paused, meeting his eyes, and Poe looked at her critically, lips thinned. _Small, young, with the added bonus of a fucked up arm… but she seems scrappy_. The spot on his head from her armored hit still throbbed. _Dirty fighter._ He approved of that. And on a second consideration, he wasn't actually sure if he could make the trek into town without water. Poe sighed.

"Alright, well, what can ya do? Are you trained? I know you've got that pointy Militia staff but how well can you use it? Didn't quite work out with me—" Tali indignantly cut him off, "I wasn't expecting the blood-covered comatose pilot whom I _thought_ was on my side and _helped_ , to attack!" She eyed him testily. "…And my dominant arm's slightly out of commission," she admitted, gesturing with her left hand towards her right side. "But yes, _thank you_ , normally I can handle a staff just fine." Poe held up his hands in supplication, fighting a grin. "And I've just been through Militia training—my aim with a blaster is _excellent_ ," she huffed, adding "…and I'm decent at fixing tech," almost as an afterthought. She rustled the bag on her back and it produced a metallic clanging. "…These are parts."

Poe clapped her (good) shoulder with a sly smile. "Alright, alright, sorry for assuming you were just a pretty face, kid." She rolled her eyes in annoyance but he thought a slight blush might have risen to her face his words. Poe's smirk continued. "If you insist on joining me, this is going to be a partnership." He cocked his head up in a mock salute. "As Black Leader—" he winced inwardly, thinking of his poor, ruined specialized fighter, "I welcome you to the team." Poe gestured towards her pack. "And considering you don't have the use of both arms, I'll carry the supplies."

Tali eyed him a bit warily. "What? I'm not going to steal it and run. As you so quickly pointed out…" he slipped the strap off her shoulder and hefted it onto his own ( _Goddamn, she's stronger than she looks, what does this shit weigh?!),_ "…I'd probably run myself right into a pit of sinking sand without you." He met her eyes. "Besides, despite our unfortunate introduction, I'm not only an ace pilot, but an upstanding gentleman and officer of the noble Resistance." _Okay, maybe that was laying it on a bit thick._ The scoffing expression in her eyes told him she didn't believe his shit anyway, but at least she didn't fight for her bag back.

He eyed the surrounding dunes. "Now if you'll accept a slight detour from our journey towards a ship outta this hellhole, I'd really like to double check the TIE fighter wreckage…" Looking down with a small frown, he surveyed the damage to his clothing. "With any luck," _Not that he'd had much of that lately_ , "my damn jacket might still be there."


	5. Chapter 5

Unsurprising to Tali, there had been no jacket and little else to be found at the scene of Poe's crash. They had, however, found a few scattered pieces of stormtrooper armor, which set her teeth on edge. Poe had seemed greatly bothered by their presence, frowning at the remnants and shaking his head regretfully as they moved on, him half-heartedly gesturing her ahead with a muttered, "lead on, partner."

Tali wasn't sure if she'd consider their temporary alliance a _partnership_ , per se, but she was satisfied with the opportunity for revenge the pilot and his Resistance afforded, even if his wry humor and unpredictability left her a bit off-balance. She repressed a shudder at a sudden flash of memory of her father's corpse. Tali longed to see those responsible for the annihilation of Tuanul and her only family destroyed. She burned for it.

And policing unruly space ne'er-do-wells was one thing, but to take part in this fight for the whole galaxy's freedom from vicious tyrants? Well, Tali had always felt that there must be a whole lot of space beyond the deserts of Jakku, and with the First Order's disastrous first appearance in her personal life, she was finding herself increasingly interested in the world's broader goings-on…

Goings-on that this Resistance pilot Poe Dameron seemed intimately, if murkily, connected with. She _definitely_ wasn't interested in the man himself… even if he had implied that he thought she was pretty ( _only_ _as a sort of back-handed compliment_ , Tali reminded herself). And even if she did maybe find his combination of sarcastic good humor and driven self-assuredness oddly… charming.

Regardless of how attractive she may or may not find him, Tali remained acutely aware of how little she knew about the inscrutable Commander. When she'd inquired as to the nature of the mysterious object being simultaneously pursued by himself and the First Order, he'd only made vague allusions to a droid and a map before deflecting her questions to more general topics. So, while she now knew that he was from a similarly warm but forested planet ("fuck, this sand is murder—but hey, at least it's a dry heat, eh?") and had spent some time fending off space pirates for the Republic before joining the Resistance, she still wasn't exactly sure why he was on Jakku.

Deciding that she didn't care enough about the intricacies of Poe's motives to continue wasting energy on finding them out, Tali had soon given up, the pair lapsing into silence. She was secretly glad also that their lack of communication (and thus her lack of distraction by his pleasantly warm voice, not that she'd admit that detail even to herself) allowed her to focus solely on navigating them across the desert. She hadn't been _lying_ exactly about her knowledge of this stretch of Jakku's Goazan Badlands… but it was perhaps a less intricate and complete knowledge than she had implied. She knew, generally, the signs that indicated sinking fields, and that Blowback Town was to the Northeast. And she didn't _exactly_ know a guy with a ship, either, but she hoped that there were still a few inhabitants (preferably with ships) who remembered how she (okay…how her father, mostly) had aided them when the town was attacked by a group of native Uthuthma raiders a few years back. She supposed that she was alright with not asking Poe any questions he was unwilling to answer if it meant that he wasn't asking her any questions she was unable to answer.

They had hiked through the rest of the night into the morning, and as the sun had slowly risen, so had the desert temperature, making her injured arm stick to her torso with sweat. The sweltering afternoon heat of their trek made her a bit lightheaded, which made her nervous, as the supply of water she had been able to glean from Tuanul was decidedly limited. She gave Poe a sidelong glance from behind her goggles. In the blazing sunlight, his skin appeared more tan than it had in the silvery moonlight, and she supposed that was beneficial considering his slightly ragged open-collared linen shirt didn't provide a hell of a lot of sun protection… she felt almost guilty about her headscarf, but figured that her natural paleness required the coverage more than he would anyway. _That cut on his cheek is going to scar. Pity_. She peered closer. His heavy-lidded eyes provided his face with a constant somewhat sleepy expression, but at this moment he looked maybe a bit… woozy?

Poe apparently noticed her studying him and turned his face to her with a raised eyebrow, the disorientation in his expression clearing. She quickly looked away. …And immediately stumbled over a Nightwatcher wormhole. Poe reached out an arm to steady her, but Tali managed to right herself with her staff before she fell on her ass and completely embarrassed herself. Her face colored under her scarves, and she looked resolutely ahead, towards the shadowy outline of a long-derelict Imperial Walker in the distance. Left over from a battle thirty years ago, the skeletons of giant ships and robots dotted this stretch of desert.

After a few more minutes of steady hiking, Poe cleared his throat. "Hey, kid…" Tali shot him a dirty look at his continuous use of the demeaning moniker, not that he could see it under the scarves. "...er, Officer. Tali. You know I'm all about getting a ship and getting the hell off of this rock as soon as possible. But I can't pilot us out if I'm dead of heatstroke, and you look like you're gonna drop over there."

Tali ruefully met his eyes through her goggles. "You're looking a bit rough yourself, pilot. How's that traumatic head injury?" She countered. The corners of Poe's mouth lifted. "Aw, feels like shit warmed over, thanks for asking. You smashed me up pretty good with that arm guard." Tali felt a slight smirk stretch her lips. He continued, "I motion for a brief siesta in that downed Walker up yonder until the sun goes down a bit. Lick our wounds. Enjoy the lovely desert scenery." Poe motioned grandly to the surrounding dust and immense wreckage with one arm.

Tali nodded in agreement and sighed, hitching her wounded arm in its sling slightly higher. "Yeah, sure is breathtaking this time of year," she murmured sarcastically. Poe threw her an amused glance. Another twenty minutes, and they'd reached the shade of the toppled Walker. Poe discarded the heavy pack with a sigh, rubbing his shoulders. Tali watched him guiltily. She was well aware of how heavy the metal parts were, but couldn't bear to discard them. You never knew when something might come in handy. And besides, if nothing else they were worth a few rations from Unkar Plutt at the Outpost. _Plus hey, he volunteered to carry it_ , she reasoned inwardly. Thinking of the Outpost sobered her. She didn't know if she could bear to go back to the ramshackle abode she'd shared with her father on the outskirts of the disorderly town. To see the place empty and know that he was never coming back. _Nothing there for me anyway, now_. It wasn't as if she had a huge store of rations or expensive collection of worldly possessions lying around back home...and since no one had inhabited it for a few days, it was likely that it had been broken into anyway. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat.

With a grunt of exertion, Poe pulled open a groaning, slightly rusted metal hatch on the Walker's side, and Tali ducked inside with her blaster drawn, just in case the shell was already occupied. When nothing but stale air greeted her, dust motes gently lit by the rays of sunlight streaming through the rusted open seams of the Walker's metal body, she replaced her gun at her back with a muttered "all clear," retrieving her staff from where it leaned against the Walker's exterior and propping it in a corner. She pushed her scarf down and off of her plaited hair, removing her goggles as well. Out of the sun, the extra layers were unnecessary and only added warmth. She unbuckled her armored gauntlets with some difficulty due to the stiffness in her injured arm, dropping them unceremoniously next to her discarded scarves.

Following her inside, Poe set the pack in the center of the small room, surveying the Walker's interior. He raised the edge of his shirt to mop his brow, hesitated, and then pulled it over his head entirely. Tali, taken by surprise, couldn't help but survey his toned ( _and bruised,_ she noted concernedly) upper body in appreciation for a moment before turning away, fiddling with her sling. She felt a blush rise on her cheeks. In the desert surroundings she'd grown up in, people covered up to combat the sun and wind… she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a bare torso. His was… attractive.

Poe turned to her after shaking out the sand caught in the seams of his shirt in the doorway, "if you don't mind, I'd prefer to get outta this sweat rag for a minute," he explained unashamedly. Tali gave a noncommittal hum. Poe threw her a grin, "aw I know I'm pretty, but you're _speechless_ , Officer?" He continued jokingly, than peered down at himself and frowned, running a hand through his wavy hair and wincing as he felt the lump on his head, and brushing at a streak of dried blood down his side. "Or maybe speechless with horror..?" He murmured. She rolled her eyes at him dismissively, but her blush had deepened. Digging in the pack, she removed a couple ration bars and tossed one to him, sitting down with the other next to the far wall and allowing herself a sip of water from her canteen.

Finishing the scant meal and downing some water quickly, Poe stretched his legs out with a sigh, resting his head on his balled-up shirt and crossing his arms over his chest. Tali glanced at his biceps as she removed her blaster and set it aside, and the ghost of a smirk crossed his lips. She swallowed, forcefully switching her attention to her wounded arm, peeling back layers of linen to examine the blistered skin of the deep laser burn near her shoulder. She regretted again her lack of armor that fateful day, but knew it could've been much worse, thinking of her father with a pang. _Not infected so far_. But it was gonna be a big, ugly scar. _Add another one to the list._

When she recovered her arm and brought her head up with a soft sigh of resignation, Poe met her eyes with an inscrutable, almost wistful expression. She raised her eyebrows at him in question but he just turned his face to the ceiling and closed his eyes. "A couple hours," he intoned softly, as if trying to justify it to himself, "give your arm some time to heal, and maybe it'll feel less like there's a Bantha sitting on my skull." Tali's lips rose softly, and she settled against the wall across from Poe, listening to his breathing slowly even out.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: I see that I have reviews but can't read them for some reason :( . I've turned on email notifications so I can now read new ones at least (but can't reply). Thank you all! When the glitch is fixed I'll thank you individually. I'm a *long* time reader but first time writer and so so appreciate the support.**

 _A few hours later_

Tali shuddered awake, greeted by the dull metal walls of the decaying Walker. She blinked back the swirling visions of fire and death that had plagued her fitful sleep, her mind lingering on the memory of her father's pale, bloody face. _I'm so sorry, dad._ Forcing her mind back to the present, Tali glanced around the spare enclosure, noting that the light filtering in had grown more amber. She rose to peer through a small rusted hole in the wall's metal sheeting. The sun had drawn closer to the horizon by several degrees, which meant that the temperature would be a bit more bearable. They should probably resume the trek. She stretched her stiff arms, wincing at the pain in her burned shoulder. She was lucky it wasn't broken. _But damn, it hurts like a bitch._

A small noise turned Tali's attention towards Poe, whom (more accurately, who's half-naked body) she had been studiously avoiding looking at. He had shifted positions at some point in his sleep and lay on his side, facing the wall. He was slightly folded in on himself, his athletic body appearing smaller in the hunched position. Tali peered at him concernedly. Poe's hand was clutched at his head, and he let out another… whimper? She frowned, biting a chapped lip. That was a painful noise. Was he just having a nightmare? He wasn't going to have an aneurysm or something right in front of her, right? She grimaced at the thought, and gingerly stepped across the space towards his prostrate form.

Up close, Tali could see that he was shaking slightly, a sheen of sweat covering the hard planes of his back. And his soft, distressed mutterings contained words. She made out "no," and something that sounded like "Ren," before deciding that whatever bad memory, nightmare, or injury was bothering him, it would probably be beneficial to try and put a stop to it before he ripped all his pretty hair out. She cleared her dry throat. "Hey. Poe. Dameron. …Commander?"

When he gave no reaction, she furrowed her brow in consternation and reached towards him with her good arm. She grasped the rounded swell of his muscled shoulder gently, feeling a bit awkward. His tan skin was pleasantly warm and smooth under her hand, and the skin-on-skin contact seemed disconcertingly… intimate, to a girl who seldom touched anyone without layers of desert linen (and generally a pointy staff) between them. But she sure as hell wasn't about to touch him below the waist where he was clothed. Color rose in her face at the errant thought, and, slightly flustered, she shook his shoulder a bit more forcefully than she'd intended with a muttered "hey."

Poe gasped awake with a jolt, releasing a short, pained yelp and twisting himself away from the wall sharply. _Waking methods were a little too effective!?_ Tali thought ruefully as his solidly built torso flung into her crouched form, bowling her over. She toppled onto her back with a strangled cry of surprise mixed with pain from the new assault on her damaged arm. Poe landed bodily on her, one elbow braced next to her narrow shoulder and his other forearm pinned across her collarbone in a strangling hold. Ineffectively shoving against his tense abdomen, she bit out a choked, irate, " _Fuck_ , man!"

The angry, desperate light that had settled in Poe's ominously clouded eyes started to clear and he loosened his hold on her throat with a low groan, sliding his arm across her body to the floor next to her other shoulder and effectively caging her beneath him. The immediate danger to her windpipe having apparently passed, Tali's mind was free to strike her uncomfortably with the realization of how close their bodies were. Her hands pressed against his firm stomach, and his very warm, solid, male chest was inches from hers. Their legs were entangled, her own immobilized beneath him. The intimacy of the position made her face redden with embarrassment as well as anger. She heaved a needed breath and coughed, glaring up at him with a forced, "get. Off."

Poe, still breathing heavily, hung his head limply where he held himself over her for a brief moment, seeming to collect himself. His dark hair nearly brushed her face and she fleetingly smelled the spiced, cinnamon-like scent that seemed to characterize him before he swiftly pushed himself off of her with a rueful, "ah, hell," clambering to his feet. He brought a hand up to his head, wincing, and met her accusing eyes apologetically. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm kinda… jumpy," Poe intoned softly, reaching his hand down tentatively to help her up.

" _Jumpy_?!" Tali scoffed incredulously, furiously ignoring his proffered hand and scrambling up on her own. Shakily, she backed away from him and towards her weapons on the other side of the space a few shuffled steps. "A Bloggin in a cage is _jumpy_. What the _fuck_ was that?" She spat out. Poe searched her face regretfully before running a hand over the dark stubble forming on his jaw. "Hey, I'm sorry," he repeated. His expression grew more uncomfortable, and, with head tilted down, he lifted his dark eyes to meet Tali's.

"I didn't crash that TIE Fighter leaving my weekly sabacc club meeting. In Tuanul, I was taken by the First Order. I only got out with the help of a renegade stormtrooper." His tone had gone from dry to regretful, and he cleared his throat. "Anyway, some of the First Order's more creative... ah, interrogation techniques… really fucked with my mind, and I'm still feeling the effects." Poe's mouth twisted. "I thought I was back there, having my head invaded, when you shook me." One corner of his mouth lifted ruefully. "Sorry I pinned you. Maybe we can agree on… no sudden movements? I don't think I'm gonna be good with surprises for awhile."

Tali swallowed convulsively, eyes wide. _He was tortured? …Mentally?_ She eyed the scabbed over cut on his cheek, his bruised abdomen. _And physically_. It wasn't exactly a surprise, but the certain knowledge of the (mostly) likeable pilot's abuse at the hands of the First Order disturbed her. _Fuck those guys_. Her stance lost much of its tense, defensive edge. Knowing the reason he attacked wasn't exactly comforting, and it didn't mean that she shouldn't be wary of him or that he wasn't potentially dangerous (the lingering soreness in her throat was doing a remarkably good job of convincing her otherwise), but it did make his actions more… understandable.

Tali nodded at his admission, glancing down uncomfortably. "Ah… Point taken." She let out a breath, toeing the metal floor, "…I didn't realize. I'm sorry. I'll, uh, be more gentle next time I want to let you know it's time to head out." She looked up at Poe and he met her gaze with a raised eyebrow, flashing her a wry grin. "Just throw something at me from afar," he suggested playfully, before his expression grew more serious. He glanced at her burned arm where it lay stiffly against her side. "Hey, you okay?" He asked gently, guilt lacing his tone.

Tali shrugged with her good shoulder. "It's not infected. It'll heal." _But it'll heal faster if you stop throwing me to the damn ground every time you regain consciousness_.She reached down to tuck her blaster at her waist, and Poe chuckled ruefully from the other side of the room. "That's my officer. May not look like it, but you're a tough woman, Tali." Tali felt the corners of her mouth lift at his words against her will, but felt compelled to respond with a muttered, "not _your_ officer, pilot." Poe in turn gave a offhanded shrug as he picked up his discarded shirt, "yeah, yeah… yet you're still hanging around."

Tali shot him a derisive glance, which only made his sly grin broaden as he pulled the linen garment over his head. _Keep talking and we'll see about that, pilot._ "Revenge for my father's murder, Commander," she reminded him. She reached for her pack, but Poe stilled her hand with his own warmer one before she could grab a strap.

"Hey, it's just Poe to you—I'm not commanding anyone here," he insisted lightly. He hefted the pack of supplies with his other hand, settling it onto his shoulders. "And until you're back to having two useable arms, that means I'm carrying your bag of metal junk around, partner," he continued smoothly, clapping her on her good shoulder before exiting the downed Walker, squinting into the amber rays of the afternoon sun.

Tali watched him exit for a moment, flexing her hand where the warmth of his grasp lingered. _Partner_. Blinking back her wandering thoughts, Tali fetched her scarf and goggles from where they lay in a dusty heap, fastening both around her face. Grabbing her barbed staff last, she followed Poe out towards the desert air.

Stepping out of the metal hatch, she eyed his back. How much could she trust this man? The subject of her weaponry hadn't arisen, but she recognized that, should they be set upon by bandits or some other relatively unlikely but possible scenario, it was a bit useless for her to be carrying her staff and the blaster with only one fully functioning arm. Sidling up to where Poe stood surveying the dunes, she considered her options. His tendency to attack her when startled awake was worrisome, but she supposed that she could demand he disarm himself before sleeping…

Tali found herself _wanting_ to trust him, found herself somehow instinctively certain that he wouldn't double-cross her, that he wouldn't actually allow himself to hurt her. And the uncharacteristic feeling surprised her. She was _used_ to dealing with cutthroats and thieves, beings with ill intentions and little concern. But this dynamic, confident man, if somewhat erratic, seemed thoroughly… decent. Honorable. _Don't be stupid because he's got a nice face_ , she reminded herself. _You don't really know him. Also he might be sort of psycho_. But he definitely was an authentic member of the Resistance, and that alone was strong commendation. Tali thought of her father's stories of galactic warfare with a pang.

Recalling the concerned, remorseful look in Poe's dark eyes when he accidentally hurt her, the stark (if sometimes harsh) honesty in his voice when he explained his positions… she held her blaster out to him, handle first. "If you'd feel more comfortable armed… I'm not a great shot with my left arm anyway," she intoned bluntly in way of explanation.

As he turned to her with a raised eyebrow, a winning smile spread across Poe's face. "Trusting me with the gun? Partner, are you beginning to like me?"

Tali only made a noncommittal, dismissive hum in response as he plucked the blaster from her outstretched hand. _I guess… I am._


	7. Chapter 7

Poe's life revolved around loyalty and trust. He was used to leading a team that relied on each other's, especially _his,_ judgment absolutely in potentially life-and-death situations. They all put their lives on the line for the Resistance with every mission they undertook. General Organa trusted him implicitly. That was why the nagging feeling of disloyalty after he spilled Resistance secrets to the enemy under Kylo Ren's ( _Ben's_ , he reminded himself) mind control was so hard for him to bear. And it was why he felt… touched, that Tali had handed over her blaster to him. His jaw clenched. _Even after I tackled her like a psycho. Again._

To Poe, that gun signaled trust. And trust in one's partner, however temporary their alliance may be in this instance, was critically important. He looked over at Tali's hooded form, a small smile tugging at his lips. And he _really wanted_ this oddly delicate-looking but fierce girl to trust him. She seemed to clutch that staff a little too tightly, like her life had been filled only with people she had to be prepared to use it on. He reasoned that policing a remote planet populated by galactic riffraff wouldn't exactly be a job for a naïve cream puff… her characteristic wariness and aggression clearly kept her alive.

Poe also felt guilty about his bad reaction and the subsequent throw down/chokehold move that afternoon, which doubtless hurt her healing arm and definitely didn't help with his whole trust-building agenda. His admission of Ren's mental invasion seemed to help relieve some of her (very legitimate) concern, though naturally explanation did not equal justification. Still. _She's not the only one who wants revenge against the First Order._ They could agree on that much.

Poe eyed Tali's scarf-covered head. When she'd removed the coverings in the downed Walker, he'd discovered that her hair was a few shades lighter than her dark, expressive eyebrows. Naturally, her hair was bound tightly in practical desert fashion, but a wave or two had gotten loose during their scuffle that afternoon. Sort of a generic slightly blondish brown, but it was like burnished bronze in the amber setting sunlight. Whatever color it was, he sort of missed seeing it, along with the rest of her now-invisible face. It was… pretty. _She's pretty._ It was a strange word to associate with someone who'd threatened him with multiple weapons and added (not insignificantly) to his head trauma. _Still a bit of a disagreeable hellion_ , he mused fondly. Honestly, compared to the near celebrity treatment he tended to receive around base as the Resistance's star pilot, Poe found her coolness… refreshing.

The sun slipped past the horizon as the pair picked their way over terrain that was gradually growing more rocky. Cresting a dusty ridge, Tali hesitated, tugging her scarf down to her neck and peering over the valley below. Poe came to a stop beside her as she adjusted a dial on the side of her goggles, breathing heavily from the lengthy climb. _Zooming lenses?_

"What's up?" Poe asked, slightly winded. Tali frowned, removing her goggles and handing them to him. "Literally up. See those circling shapes?" She responded, rubbing at the reddened lines the goggles had left on the bridge of her nose. "They're ripper-raptors, and they're carrion eaters, which means someone or something down there," she pointed to a stretch of valley leading to a steep butte, "is having a bad day."

Poe strapped the goggles over his face, eyeing the leathery-winged creatures in question. _Reptilian… gross._ "You sure do live on a lovely planet, my friend," he murmured sarcastically.

Tali gave a bark of laughter, shaking her head. "Come to the Niima Outpost bazaar, or better yet, Ergel's for some Knockback Nectar. I'll show you _lovely_." Poe met her eyes with a playful grin, handing the goggles back over. "Can I take a rain check for that tour until after we destroy the First Order?" When her hand met his to retrieve her goggles, he held on to the eyewear for a few extra seconds, prolonging their contact.

Tali swallowed convulsively, and Poe thought he saw some color rise to her cheeks in the growing darkness. _Do I make you nervous because you're afraid of me? Or because—_ Tali's voice cut off his racing thoughts, "I suppose that would be acceptable." _Did she sound flustered? She definitely sounds flus—_ "Anyway, what I'm worried about isn't the raptors, it's what they're after. They don't always circle things that are already dead, they also circle things, and people, that are _going_ to die." She peered through her goggles again. "Looks like there might be a campfire glowing down by that butte and there's a small chance it belongs to some unfriendly natives. Uthuthma raiders operate around here." Her eyebrows drew together worriedly.

Poe squinted towards the butte, adjusting the pack on his shoulders. "So, what, you want to skirt around em? …Do they tend to travel in large groups?" Poe wasn't afraid of a few menacing local residents, but he had a botched-up mission to complete. In as timely a manner as possible. When Tali didn't immediately respond, he let out an exasperated breath. "Spit it out."

Tali looked over at him, biting her lower lip. "They might have captured somebody. I'm supposed to be helping police this planet, I can't just ignore a potential murder." Poe eyed her narrowly. "You seemed awfully keen on giving up your militia duties in favor of the Resistance yesterday, partner."

Tali's expression hardened. "We're still on Jakku, _partner_ , and until we leave this rock, I have an obligation to its law-abiding citizens." Her fierce eyes shifted away from his, "and, um, there's also what appears to be a ship around the corner of the butte, which I thought you might be interested in." _Aaand_ _there it is._ Being a bad liar himself, Poe recognized the signs.

He crossed his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow at Tali. "Thought you said you had some mysterious favor to cash in for a ride, _partner._ " She guiltily raised her eyes to meet his. "I… may have slightly exaggerated my potential influence in Blowback Town," she admitted stiffly. _Knew that story seemed awfully convenient_. "…It's not as if you've been open and honest about everything, either!" Tali continued in protest, "I don't even know where this vague map of yours goes or why it's so bleeding critical!"

Poe sighed, running a hand over his jaw agitatedly. _Fair point. But the fate of the whole damn galaxy might rest on my information._ "Must've really wanted to tag along with me, huh?" He muttered with exasperation, before clapping his hands together in front of him in mock excitement. "Well, looks like we're fighting bandits then, doesn't it?"

Tali's stance relaxed only slightly at his words. "…Yes?"

Poe eyed her critically. "Then let's get a plan of attack laid out. We don't have time to waste on getting killed or captured ourselves. …And as for the map; if you must know, it leads to Luke Skywalker, who can help the Resistance end the First Order for good."

Tali's face snapped up to his, eyes wide. " _The_ Luke Skywalker? The Jedi?" She gave a low whistle, continuing under her breath, "those Force worshiping nut-jobs had it right all along?" The corners of Poe's mouth curved up involuntarily. "Pretty much, believe it or not." Tali shook her head in wordless amazement.

He resignedly turned his attention back to the valley below, fingering the blaster at his belt. Now that the sky had darkened further into night, he could make out a tell-tale orange spot of firelight against the butte. "Now let's go pay our new friends a visit, and relieve them of their transport."

Tali schooled her still shocked expression, nodding sharply, and started down the embankment. "Right. Yes. Uthuthma usually travel in small groups… I couldn't make out much movement. They've probably got a couple on guard, maybe more if there's a prisoner. How about we split up and attack from either side of the camp? With the stone at their backs, they'll only have one direction to go. And they usually can't see that well in the dark…" she shuddered. "Small, shadowed eyes."

Poe nodded grimly. "Reasonable enough. And I know you're attached to that pointy stick of yours, but I think considering the arm situation, you should take the blaster. Even if your aim's off, any shooting will be close range. I'd recommend just clobbering 'em over the head though, of course. Less likely to rouse the whole camp… and we already know you're good at skull bashing." He shot a pointed look in her direction. _My skull can attest._ Tali gave him an apologetic glance in the darkness, securing her scarf around her face and checking her armored gauntlets before reluctantly handing her staff over to Poe and taking the proffered blaster from his hand, placing it at her side.

They trod a circling path through the valley, and as they neared the far side of the butte, Poe dropped the pack from his shoulders quietly. He signaled Tali to cover the side of the camp where the ship was parked, creeping around in the other direction himself. _Just a lovely raider-hunting side trip on an ass-backwards, no-name planet. The glorious adventures of ace Resistance pilot Poe Dameron continue. Wonderful night for it, really. No fucking problem at all._

So caught up in his mental grumblings, Poe almost missed the first guard. He drew back against the stone wall of the butte quickly at the sight of it's pale, skull-like head. _Were those… chains… it's wearing around its neck?_ He bided his time against the outcropping until the tall, thin Uthuthma passed near him, its (… _his?_ ) attention focused on the open valley beyond. Poe brought Tali's solid staff whistling down on its temple before the being could turn in his direction, and the metal made contact with a sickening crunch. He caught the creature before it crashed to the ground, knees nearly buckling under its weight before he lowered it noiselessly. Wouldn't do to ruin the element of surprise. He grabbed the Uthuthma's blaster as he stepped over the body. _Time to feed the raptors._

Poe hefted Tali's staff appreciatively as he crept further along the rocks. _Might not even need a gun, though_. _Well-balanced, this thing…_ A short, startled cry tore through the still night, followed by the unmistakable sound of blaster fire. _Fuck. Was that Tali? So much for the element of surprise._ Grimacing, Poe rushed headlong towards the distressed noises of the scrambling Uthuthma, three of them rising from where they cooked Bloggin meat over their fire. With the raiders' attention drawn wholly toward the commotion on the other side of the camp, Poe was able to shoot two out of three from behind before they could react, or even fully realize he was there. _Surprise, boys._

He dodged a blast from the third raider, flattening himself against the rocky cliff wall. Shards of stone flew from the Uthuthma's assault, one nicking Poe's jaw. He swore vividly, dropping into a fast crouch and firing at the raider from the ground, taking it out with an unapologetic shot to its skull-like, socket-eyed face. But not before feeling the burn of blaster fire a little too close to his own head. _Was that the smell of singed hair? God fucking damn it._ Mouth drawn in a thin line, Poe rose and strode through the camp, blaster at the ready.

He didn't need it. An apparently unhurt but very displeased Tali stood over the singed body of a fifth Uthuthma with her characteristic scarves pulled down to her neck, scowling at a small, pink-skinned Blarina in chains to her left. Poe spied at least one more downed raider several feet behind her. He came to a halt before Tali, sinking her staff into the sand. Poe stuck the recovered blaster into his belt and wiped at the rivulet of blood leading from his jaw down the column of his throat. _That went about as well as it could have, I suppose, despite the fuck up._ "Well?" He demanded.

Tali frowned, grabbing her staff. " _Well_ , that would've gone smoother if this guy," she glared down at the Blarina captive, who babbled frantically in a language Poe didn't understand, "hadn't squawked and alerted the whole damn camp at once." She sighed, apparently listening to the creature's distressed ramblings. "Yeah, yeah," she informed it testily, "uh huh. Well you just tell them and anyone else who asks that Niima Outpost Militia Officer Taliya Zev believes in upholding the fucking law." It continued less frantically, and Tali crossed her arms, looking at the Blarina with raised brows. "No. But what you _can_ do is lend us your ship. This man is an important Resistance commander and needs to get back to his base." Poe's mouth twitched. _Important? Aw._ "…No. I'm going with him. No. Yes. No, it's secret. _Yes._ …What?! Ugh." Tali turned from the small creature in frustration, grumbling.

"Well, the ship is his and he's willing to let you take it. But we'll have to—" Tali cut herself off as she finally took in Poe's appearance. "Oh damn, are you alright?" She breathed, bringing her hands towards his throat, eyes focusing on the bloody smear with concern. The movement of her right arm made her flinch in pain, and Poe carefully laid his hand on the injured limb, immobilizing it at her side.

She gently brushed at his jaw with her good hand, then lowered it to gingerly prod at his neck, her hand soothingly cool against his flesh. Poe fought the urge to close his eyes and lean into her light grasp like a cat. "It's not bad," he intoned quietly, "just some shrapnel." His throat worked under her hand as he swallowed. "Cuts to the face tend to bleed a lot, look worse than they are."

Tali nodded and her eyes ran over his features, her brows drawn. "Your poor face," she murmured lowly, before seeming to realize what she was doing and hastily pulling her hand away from him. She cleared her throat, backing away a step. The coolness of her hand slowly faded from his throat.

"This Blarina, his name is Naka lit, he'll help us fly to your base. But unfortunately we'll have to fix his ship first, as it was damaged by the raiders… and we'll probably have to fuel up in Blowback Town," Tali explained quickly, motioning to the vehicle in question. Having been absorbed in the fighting and in Tali's concern for his face, Poe hadn't yet taken a real look at the craft, and he surveyed it now. …With mounting concern. Was that…?! _You've got to be fucking kidding me._

He let out a strained, incredulous breath, motioning towards the starship. "If this… I'm going to be real kind and go with the word 'antique'… bucket of bolts can even make it into town, let alone across the galaxy! Tali, that freighter's a damn HWK-290. I think my grandfather flew one of these. Hell, it was probably old when _he_ flew it—they stopped making these things before the Clone Wars even started," he took a few halting steps towards the ship then turned back, rounding on the Blarina. "Where'd you even manage to dig this piece up, Naka… whatever?" The creature snapped at him indignantly, but Poe immediately shushed him with a hand, running the other through his hair in agitation.

"Ah, forget it, forget it, I don't speak that," Poe muttered grouchily. He turned to Tali with a look of resignation. "Well partner, I hope you've got something useful in that bag of parts I've been lugging around. Like maybe a miracle. I've got a feeling this rig's gonna need it."


	8. Chapter 8

Tali wasn't a pilot, and she wasn't exactly up on all the details about the latest and greatest technology. This was Jakku, after all… _it's not called a junkyard planet for nothing_. The last major galactic event occurred three decades ago, and the population was still scavenging bits of Imperial tech for rations. But as she studied the Blarina's freighter, she had to admit that even by her standards it did look old and a bit… neglected. _Okay, decrepit._

But in the darkness and from where she stood by the rocky cliff face, Tali couldn't tell how much of the obvious wear giving the craft its junky appearance was superficial and how much was more serious. She started towards it, but was stopped by Naka Iit's protests. Giving the bound Blarina an apologetic nod, she strode back towards the center of the campsite and bent to shuffle through the scorched Uthuthma bodies. _Ugh._

Finally discovering a key amongst the heavy chains circling one raider's neck, Tali returned to release Iit. "I know you speak Basic," she said lowly, helping him pull the chains from his scaly body, a bit awkwardly due to her stiff right arm, "what don't you want Poe to hear?" She couldn't suppress a smirk at the rude reply spat in his native tongue. "Uh huh. Your insults aren't that creative." _I'm sure the man's been told he's arrogant in many dialects._ "…Yes, he's an outsider, and I'll even grant you a solid maybe on the craziness accusation, but I swear he's not lying," she continued as Iit's beady eyes peered at her closely. The meaning of her words slowly sank in, making her pause. _In fact, I think he may be one of the more trustworthy people I've had the fortune to meet._ Tali's eyes rose unbidden, seeking out Poe's form as he climbed athletically into the freighter.

Iit gave a sudden hissing snort of mirth from beside her, interrupting her thoughts. "Ah, but what is this? Perhaps you follow the handsome pilot for reasons other than the purely political, Officer?" He cackled quite gleefully for a creature who'd been a captive mere minutes before, and Tali shot him a glare, face heating. "What? No! I want to witness the First Order's destruction." She swallowed uncomfortably, throwing the heavy Uthuthma chains down a bit more forcefully than necessary. _Oh, so now you decide you want to speak with me in Basic?_

The Blarina only gave her a sly smile, showing off an abundance of pointy teeth, before bolting towards his ship after Poe. Tali's eyebrows rose. _Forgot how fast those little guys are_. She shoved a stray curl out her face, determined not to think too hard about Iit's words. _Because maybe he's right?_ Tali shook off the thought. Retrieving her staff, she started around the butte towards the back side where Poe had dropped the pack. _I knew those parts would come in handy._ Now hopefully whatever repairs were needed wouldn't actually take a miracle.

When Tali returned, clambering into the battered Hawk, she was met with what sounded like a heated argument over the relative merits of Corellian and Kuat Systems Engineering. _Apparently the Blarina's decided Poe's worth engaging in conversation…or bickering, at least… after all. How lovely._ She glanced back towards the long hold, dusted with sand and cluttered with greasy machinery ( _looks like the scavenging's going pretty well these days?_ ) before facing the two where they crowded in the beak-shaped cockpit. She dropped the pack of parts heavily to the floor.

Poe looked up at the noise, his expression immediately dropping its annoyed edge and growing concerned. "Ah hell Tali, I'm sorry I forgot about the bag," his dark eyes dropped to her arm, "you alright?" Tali removed her scarf, dropping it next to the flight computer, and raised an eyebrow at his words. "It hasn't grown fangs and attacked—I'll live," she deadpanned. One corner of Poe's mouth lifted and the Blarina loosed an odd barking hiss of a laugh. _It wasn't that funny…_ "Anyway," she continued, unbuckling her armored braces and dropping them from her arms onto the floor near her scarf, "I noticed some burns on the starboard engine assembly we'll need to check out, but otherwise the outside of this beast looks reasonably okay… anything seem terribly wrong in here?" She motioned towards the flight computer, glancing around the cabin. _Sure hope not, I'm better with mechanical fixes._

Poe and their new scavenger Blarina comrade explained potential issues as Tali took a closer look at the front of the craft. She frowned at the lack of a windshield. _How does this even work?_ Tali glanced at Poe apprehensively. "You _can_ fly this thing, right?"

Poe met her gaze confidently, raising an eyebrow. "Sweetheart, I can fly anything." Iit gave a derisive scoff and Poe shot him an irked look before turning back to Tali. "If you can get this Hawk off the ground, it might even be fun… we're going old school," he murmured, a slow grin spreading across his face. Tali answered with a small smile of her own.

"One thing though, it does require a co-pilot," Tali's smile immediately disappeared, "…which is apparently why our new friend here couldn't just outfly the Uthuthma." He gave Iit a pointed look as the being started to protest, "oh and it seems that he also very recently… _acquired_ … the bird," _So we're borrowing a stolen freighter? Noted._ "...and hasn't actually figured out how everything works yet."

The Blarina hissed an indignant rejoinder, "I have been utilizing the craft's storage capacity." Tali's lips twitched. "So you've been using this thing as a junk locker. When's the last time it was off the ground?" Iit demurred, shifting uncomfortably, and started fiddling with the maintenance access behind the computer. Tali sighed as Poe's expression grew more appalled. _I'd better check out that engine._

As she started towards her pack, Poe brushed past her, scooping up its straps before she could protest and gesturing her outside with a flourish. Shaking her head softly, Tali bit back an amused smile. She pulled her goggles over her face, switching a head light on at their side. Moving towards the rear of the Hawk, she surveyed the engine assembly, trying to hide her apprehension. _This is… a lot bigger than anything I've fixed before. Not to mention more important._ Tali had always thought of repair work as a puzzle of sorts—ultimately, it was all about taking things apart and making sure they went back together again the same way. … _More or less._

The Hawk's technology was relatively outdated, but it was so heavily modified with layers of cobbled-together "improvements," the craft seemed less jigsaw puzzle and more complicated 3-D model. _With enough tangled-ass wiring to choke a bantha_. Still, there was something about the work that Tali found oddly satisfying, even if it was a bit awkward to perform with one fully-functioning arm. _One and a half-ish_. Scowling in concentration, she straightened electromagnetic vectoring planes and replaced a snapped-off atmospheric sensor. Poe handed her tools from the bag occasionally while he checked various drivers and housing components.

Eventually rising from where he had crawled under a strut to inspect the landing gear, Poe leaned against the fin next to Tali with casual grace. "I don't know what kinda pirate our new friend stole her from, but this gal must've packed a serious punch back in the day," he marveled with a low whistle, motioning to the aftermarket blaster turret and undercarriage. "Incendiaries and all."

Tali straightened from where she was bent over an engine, wiping her dirty sleeve across her brow with a nod that signaled her completion. _For now, anyway._ She felt the muscles in her drawn face smooth out as she caught the formation of Poe's disarming smile. Facing him to reply, she accidentally shined the light on her goggles directly into his eyes, making him cringe. "Yeesh, don't blind the pilot," Poe murmured, reaching a hand to cover the light with his fingers. His palm landed against the side of her face in the process, warm and slightly rough against her cheek. Rather than being intrusive, the contact felt… pleasant. She barely held back a contented sigh, closing her eyes briefly behind their thick lenses.

Tali blinked them back open as Poe clicked the bulb off and dragged her goggles up past her forehead with his other hand, the one against her face gently lingering. His heavy-lidded eyes were unreadable in the glow of the slowly gathering dawn and the Hawk's running lights (some of which were burnt out, Tali noticed). After surveying her face for a brief moment, whatever emotion clouded his dark features cleared. A crooked smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Head tilted back, Poe wiped at what she assumed was a smudge of oil on her cheekbone with his thumb. "You're kinda cute when you're covered in grease, partner," he informed her playfully, the half-smile spreading into a cheeky grin before he lowered his hands.

Tali raised a skeptical eyebrow, but her lips curved upwards of their own volition. "Uh-huh. You'll be real cute if you manage to pilot us out of here without fucking up the…" she glanced at the engine assembly, "… _tenuously_ functional reverse thrusters." She clapped him on the shoulder as she walked past to re-enter the ship, "easy on the landing, eh?" He threw a scoffing look towards the motor and grabbed the pack, following her. "Excuse you, woman, all of my landings are smooth," he protested lightly. She smirked. _I'll bet that's what all the girls say._ "…And also, I object to the use of 'cute' in my case—surely you meant 'supremely talented and devilishly handsome'?" Poe bit his lip in amusement at the blatant eye roll she gave him in response. "I'll even settle for 'reasonably alright guy'…?" He continued in mock disappointment.

Tali shook her head, grinning despite herself as they entered the cockpit. Iit gave her a skeptical, calculating look before launching into a long-winded explanation of what he'd been tinkering with. Tali was more concerned with the Hawk's piloting logistics, which she'd pushed from her mind while doing the repair work but were now swiftly reentering her consciousness. She studied the dual stations, brows furrowed in apprehension.

As he moved to stand next to her, Poe gave Tali a searching look, head ducked to meet her eyes. "Yeah, I'm definitely gonna need a co-pilot. One who can reach all the controls." From behind them, the diminutive Iit protested, but Poe held his hands up towards him apologetically. "Sorry, man. Take it up with the designers." He turned back to Tali, "Anyway. I take it you haven't flown before?"

Tali held his eyes. "I can count the times I've even been a passenger on a starship on both hands," _or maybe just one, actually,_ "…they're kind of a rarity around here. My dad and I," she swallowed. _Will it always hurt this much to think of him?_ "Only shared a speeder."

Tali watched Poe's square jaw work. The stubble on his face had grown thicker, helping hide the jagged nick along his jaw from the raider scuffle. Some dried blood from that and previous injuries remained on his face and neck, adding an edge of grunge to the attractively masculine visage beneath. Tali wanted to gently wipe the streaks away. _Your poor, nice face._

Poe's voice shook her out of her reverie. _Shit, how long was I staring?_ She glanced down, and Naka Iit cocked his scaly head at her with a toothy smirk from behind the pilot. _Too long._ She narrowed her eyes at the Blarina briefly before looking back up at Poe, who was explaining the controls. "…Same principle. Sorta. I'll walk you through it. Anyway ah, here, you'll take the station in front." He motioned her forward and she lowered herself onto the faded orange seat.

Poe leaned above her from behind, pointing out various controls, and Tali breathed in his characteristic cinnamon-like scent, trying to stay calm and focused. _It won't be that hard. I don't even really have to fly it. I'll just sit here and push some buttons. Just like a speeder. …Sort of. Why are there so many levers?!_

Poe strapped himself in behind her, apparently happy as a clam in his piloting element. She could hear the grin in his voice. "Don't worry, a lot of those controls are for weaponry modifications, which we hopefully won't need to worry about. But I'll definitely need you for any shielding and navigation…" He trailed off, flipping numerous switches, as the Hawk's engines shuddered into life behind them. "…Aaand we're lit! Alright! Buckle your seatbelts, kids," Poe exclaimed. _Wish I shared that excitement. Here's to hoping nothing blows._ She ran through the potential limits of their hasty repair work in her mind as Iit cheered from his passenger seat in the hold. With a jerk, the Hawk rose from the ground, hovering. Tali leaned over to glance out the window beside her. _Yes!_

But from his station behind her, Poe loosed a colorful string of curses. She turned around in alarm. He smacked the sides of the craft's piloting goggles before yanking them off, rubbing his face. He met her eyes in frustration. "Well, one thing we didn't check is the camera mounted on the nose. Apparently it's damaged, making these holographic piloting goggles, real fancy-pants in our grandparents' day mind you, not worth shit." He chucked them sideways. "Good thing they included view ports," he muttered, reaching up and rubbing at the dirty glass, square jaw clenched in concentration. "We're just gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way."

Tali gulped down the lump that had formed in her throat at his words. He was going to try piloting this thing using only those ( _small, smudged, generally undesirable)_ view ports? Basically, they were flying blind? Iit hissed in alarm from the back. _You and me both, buddy._ She threw Poe a wild look, "are you crazy?! You think this'll work?"

He gave her a slightly unhinged grin in return. "It's gonna have to." At the odd light in his eyes— _was he sort of excited about this?_ —she turned around, shakily placing her hands over the throttle. "Blowback Town's over the ridge to the left, right?" Poe asked lowly as he turned the craft, rear fins narrowly missing the rocky ridge behind them. "Yeah, then miles through a valley. Look out for rock formations!" Tali pleaded. _Oh hell, here we go._ "I got this," Poe intoned lowly. She took a deep breath, trying not to panic.

"Alright, release," he called, and she hurriedly pressed down. The Hawk shot forward. They gained height and speed to race over the rocky ridge, plummeting past another butte. Poe gave a whoop of excitement from behind her. "Damn! She's solid—they don't make 'em like they used to!" … _Thank goodness_. Tali glanced out the windows next to her as the craft careened through the desert landscape. _Bad idea._ She immediately brought her gaze back to the control panel in front of her. This whole not being able to see straight ahead thing was making her queasy. _Don't throw up, don't throw up._

They sped through the desert, dodging rocky cliffs, while Poe occasionally issued commands or excited cheers ("Whoo! That's what I call maneuverability!"). The journey lasted for less time than Tali expected. _Or maybe I blacked out for a second?_ The next time she chanced a look outside, the path to Blowback Town was visible, the earth curving below as Poe piloted the Hawk in a wide arc. Rather than coming to a quick stop and putting too much force on the reverse thrusters, he aimed the craft in a final upward swoop, making Tali lean back in her seat.

Easing the Hawk down backwards into landing position and instructing Tali with levers, Poe gave a whistle of appreciation. Iit hissed a cheer from his seat. Tali was similarly thrilled to be back on the ground in one piece, unbuckling herself with slightly shaking hands. _Holy hell, it's over._ Rising and turning away from her control station, Tali felt Poe's warm hands grasp her waist, swinging her around the seat.

She let out a startled squeak at the movement, gripping Poe's arm for balance as he deposited her in front of him. Her eyes rose to his triumphant, grinning face. "How's that for a landing?!" He exclaimed, hands still holding her gently around the waist. Tali found herself grinning uncontrollably back, and slung her arm up around his neck in a half embrace, bringing their faces close. "Not bad, Dameron," she replied, breathless with relief… and maybe his electric proximity. _Talented and handsome, indeed._

Eyes blazing with unreadable emotion, Poe drew in a breath, as if preparing to speak. _Was he easing closer?_ A hissing cackle from Iit behind them shattered the moment, and Tali tore her eyes from Poe's rawly compelling face. She hastily lowered her arm, the release of his hands from her waist following more reluctantly. Poe let out the breath in a ragged sigh.

"Perhaps it would be beneficial to obtain fuel now, and celebratory embraces later?" The Blarina inquired dryly. Tali felt a blush rising to her cheeks. She cleared her throat, brushing past Poe towards Iit and the exit. "Ah yes, fuel. Which merchant did you say to visit?" Tali replied quickly, flustered.

She could still feel the lingering warmth of Poe's firm hands below her ribcage, sinking into her skin like a brand.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Thanks so so much for the support and feedback for this story, I really appreciate it! The reviews etc make me incredibly happy :'). Unfortunately, I'm no longer on winter holiday so I won't be able to update quite as often as I was before but I'll try to write as much as possible! Disclaimer again: no idea about technical stuff I'm just guessing/making shit up here sorry thank you.**

...

Poe was going to kill that Blarina.

Okay, maybe he wasn't literally feeling murderous, but Poe was feeling… a bit frustrated… with the diminutive scavenger. He'd finally cracked Tali's reserved demeanor. Definitively. She'd thrown her one fully functional arm around him ( _him_ , the jackass who'd attacked her twice) of her own accord, for god's sake. And Iit had interrupted Poe's plan to express his appreciation for her consistent help, mechanical work, and ability to copilot reasonably well even though the flying obviously freaked her out. Jaw clenched, he watched Tali's slight frame disappear through the doorway after Iit for a moment before following them outside, turning to check how well the engine assembly repairs were holding up.

Sure, Tali had definitely lied to him about the ease with which they could acquire a ship off planet, but then she'd been apologetic about it… and everything had worked out, _or is hopefully going to—we're not off this rock yet,_ in the end. Plus, it was oddly flattering that the delicate-looking but fierce and honorable officer had wanted to come with him on the trek so badly she'd overstated her position like that—he had a feeling (and could judge from her clumsiness at it) that she seldom lied. _Well, she wants revenge against her father's murderers that badly,_ he reminded himself. _I'm just her ticket to the resistance._ Not that he blamed her for that, or felt somehow entitled to being more than a means to an end for her… it was just that the thought of them parting ways as soon as they got back to base sent a strange pang slicing through his chest.

Rising from where he'd been inspecting the Hawk's sensors, Poe watched Tali and Iit interact underneath a faded canopy with what appeared to be a grungy Blarina merchant. _Hope he's got fuel._ Blowback Town was less a proper town and more an unimpressive collection of tent-like hovels, dusty and bleached pale by the perpetual sun. A few hunched inhabitants had been drawn out by the noise of the Hawk's landing. Mostly consisting of the planet's native Blarina and Uthuthma species, they peered at him through desert scarves. He raised his eyebrows, staring brazenly back at them until the small crowd dispersed, returning to their homes or the central mercantile tents. _Real happening kinda place._

Poe's attention shifted back to Tali, who was making firm gestures towards the merchants' supplies. Surveying her veiled form, Poe acknowledged that he had genuinely grown to enjoy the young woman's unobtrusive company. It was a solid bit of luck that she was the one who'd stumbled across him in the desert, and he really did appreciate all her help. Like the fact that she'd shared her water and stuck around until he came to after the crash. And that she hadn't split after his resulting mentally and physically volatile bullshit. He really needed to express his appreciation before they parted ways, or he'd feel like a real dick.

…And maybe a not-so-small part of him had wanted that appreciation to extend in a non-platonic direction when Tali's slim arm was around his neck in the cockpit and she was all close, and off-balance, and smiling up at him breathlessly… hell, he wasn't blind. And as a non-oblivious red-blooded member of the human species, Poe couldn't help but have noticed more than her seething anger when he'd wrestled her to the ground in disorientation earlier. She'd been irate, but she'd blushed at the contact—there was a spark there. He tore his eyes away from Tali's hooded frame, trying to force his focus back to the Hawk, and his mission, and _definitely not_ how her lean body was soft in the right places. He shifted uncomfortably.

It wasn't often that Poe needed someone to help him out of a jam, but even if he went around forming strategic partnerships with revengeful strangers all the time, he seriously doubted that many of them would have a face like hers. Or a backbone. _Not a bad combination for a boondocks ranger._ He shook himself. _Ah hell, Dameron, stop fixating creepily on the pretty girl who's only in this to destroy the First Order and focus on your fucking mission._ He had a ship to program. And he had other reasons to be glad to have Tali around, anyway. Poe was a pilot, not a mechanic. He knew a thing or two about starships, but he could admit to himself that he couldn't have gotten the Hawk to operate as (relatively) well without her, and especially not without her bag of parts.

Tali was pretty young and inexpert in some ways, but it was clear to Poe that she had a knack for survival—whether it was simply due to growing up in the harsh desert planet environment or otherwise ingrained. The same instinct that led to her dirty fighting and the aggressive, masked demeanor with which she compensated for her soft appearance seemed to play into the way she handled the repairs, her injuries, and their whole journey. She just… made things work. In the case of the Hawk, she made parts that didn't exactly match the originals do an adequately functional job. There was a desperate creativity in it that he recognized. Poe had certainly been in enough high-stake situations ( _like escaping from an enemy's Star Destroyer in an unfamiliar starfighter…_ ) where he had to make do or die trying to value that grit.

He was programming the flight computer when he heard Tali returning, Iit lugging a slightly rusty canister of fuel behind her while she hefted her staff and a flask of water. Taking pity on the Blarina, Poe grabbed the worn canister from his clawed fingers, eyeing it a bit dubiously, and moved to fill the tanks. Tali set down her staff and joined him, pulling her scarf down off her face.

"Turns out somebody here did remember me and the Outpost Militia," she explained lowly, "Blarina merchant named Ohn Gos. Sympathetic sort. That's all the fuel he had, though." Her thick eyebrows drew together. "Where is your base, anyway?"

Poe eyed her as he hoisted the canister up to the fuel tank. "It's on D'Qar." Tali gave him a blank look. _Alright, so not a geography expert. …Well okay, neither am I._ "It's in the Ileenium system," he explained, angling to make sure Iit was out of earshot. _Can't have the whole junkyard colony knowing the Resistance's secret location… not that they've got any way to get there..._

Tali's surprised voice interrupted his thoughts. "The Outer Rim?!" She pushed her headscarf down, smoothing a hand over her plaited hair. _Hadn't noticed that bloody spot on the side of her head in the dark. ...We match._ He just hoped he hadn't caused that injury. "…And you call this planet backcountry," Tali continued in a mutter, shooting him a look of mock insult. Poe felt one corner of his mouth lift. "Sure is a damn junkyard," he replied cheerfully.

Tali raised an eyebrow at him imperiously, offering the flask of water. "Anyway, I didn't notice anything wrong with the hyperdrive… but I'm definitely no expert." She glanced around at the Hawk's machinery uncomfortably. _Not much we can do anyway._

Poe met her eyes with a tight-lipped smile, "well if it blows, there'll definitely be pieces of us in multiple dimensions." Tali gulped, eyes wide. _Hazel… that's the color._ His lips quirked, and he clapped her on her good shoulder before tossing the now-empty fuel canister out into the sand. "Don't worry, if it comes to that, we'll be too dead to care. Now c'mon, how many times do you live?" … _Certain force-worshipers' beliefs notwithstanding._

She let out a breath. "Yeah, the whole one chance thing is why I'm worried," Tali grumbled, climbing back towards the front of the Hawk. Poe watched her departing back, shaking his head fondly for a moment before turning to find Iit.

After a few minutes spent convincing the Blarina that Resistance members would be sure to return his ship and many more spent unloading much of Iit's salvaged junk from the hold, Poe and Tali were free to leave. The sun (and thus the temperature) had risen while they worked, and Poe wiped sweat from his brow with one arm, feeling the rough beginnings of a beard on his jaw. _Goddamn, I need a shower. And a shave._ He didn't even want to consider what he smelled like at this point. And how many days was it since the last time he'd really slept? He chose not to think about that too closely, giving his head a swift shake to clear it. Tali was strapping herself into the copilot station, _probably giving herself a pep talk too_. Poe stretched up to rub futilely at the smudged view ports. _What the fuck ever. Time to rejoin the resistance, regroup, get this shit show back on track._ He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that Jakku had a communications grid. He sighed. _That'd be too easy._

Flipping switches, Poe powered up the Hawk. Upon shifting the engines into gear, however, one gave a shuddering backfire, throwing half of the ship up and rocking him in his seat. Tali gave a surprised cry and Poe swore viciously, switching the controls back off and reaching to unbuckle himself. But Tali was already moving past him, muttering under her breath as she grabbed her pack of tools on the way out. When he caught up with her outside by the engine assembly, she was pulling a digital voltmeter out of her bag.

"Will you pry open that access panel?" Tali asked, indicating with her chin towards the far edge of the wing. Poe complied, mouth set in a line. "Well, what is it Doc, she gonna live?" He asked, motioning towards the craft. Tali eyed him, blowing a loose piece of hair out of her face.

"I knew I forgot to check something. If that hiccup was what I think it was, it's because some component of the atmospheric sensor isn't working, probably," she clamped the voltmeter's wires into a port on the sensor computer, gritting her teeth, "the blasted computer." She frowned, bending over the device to read the electrical output. Poe reached out a hand to brush her fallen hair back behind her ear, but she did it before he could, so he awkwardly changed the move to running a hand through his own hair mid-reach, clearing his throat. Tali ignored him. "Yep. The chip I don't have… knew I should've just left that broken sensor alone…" Tali frowned at the offending piece of technology, then raised her eyes to Poe's. "I may have something… somewhat similar? From a bigger, newer engine. Imperial freighter." Her mouth twisted.

Poe considered the options. It was just the one engine? He backed up a few steps, surveying the Hawk's layout. "We don't need it. The port engine's works, right?"

Tali's dark eyebrows drew together at his statement. "Yeah, but this one runs the risk of backfiring with the wrong oxygen to fuel levels, or worse—it could stop working entirely, send us into a tail spin." Poe moved closer to where she knelt over the open panel.

"But we can connect the two instead of running them as separate systems," he explained, gesturing towards the engine on the other side. "Connect…?" Tali's eyes widened. "Oh, run wire all the way over to the working one! Different engine, same atmosphere." She stood, considering the length of the ship. "It'll be a bit janky." _What part of this beast isn't?_ Poe couldn't help but loose a short laugh. Tali continued, "we'll have to divert a bit more power to the port side one… but not too much, don't want to overload it."

Nodding, Poe shifted his attention to her bag. "How much wire you got in there?" Tali smirked, raising her eyes to his face. "Well, if we need more, there are several layers of tangled, unnecessary electronic systems clogging this thing…" He felt a slow grin spread across his face. "Indeed there are."

After nearly an hour of their piecing together twisted, junky wiring, Poe climbed back into the cockpit to try the engines again. Flipping levers, he held his breath, hoping for smooth gear shifts. After several unremarkable seconds, Tali climbed back in, dragging her bag into a corner and coming to hover over Poe's station.

She peered at his blinking controls, "it's working?" Tali gripped Poe's shoulder excitedly, and he nodded, tilting his head around to meet her eyes. "So far so good. Nice fix, partner." Tali ducked her head as a smile formed on her lips, "you thought of it."

She started to pull away, moving past him towards the copilot station, and Poe rubbed the side of his face affectionately against the hand she'd laid on his shoulder. "Only after you already figured out it was the atmospheric sensor. I'd still be half-buried in sand, yanking out fuel injectors." He grinned at Tali as slight color rose in her pale cheeks, but then his expression sobered. He swallowed, holding her eyes. "Really, for everything. Thank you. I really owe you." _Really really._ _Hell, he sounded lame._ _Better return to humor, the usual coping mechanism—_ "I'm very grateful that you took pity on my sorry ass," he deadpanned.

Tali's lips curved in a gentle smile, and her expressive eyebrows softened. _Goddamn, she's pretty._ "My pleasure," she intoned quietly, squeezing his shoulder lightly before climbing down into the copilot station. Her tone lightened as she strapped herself in, glancing back over her shoulder at him, "…you can repay me by destroying the First Order."

Poe grinned at her, raising two fingers in a mock salute as he shifted the Hawk's gears with his other hand. "My pleasure," he responded in kind. _I'm doing the best I can with that over here._

And somehow the fact that Tali was here, with him, and wanted him and the Resistance to succeed, made Poe that much more confident that his ill-fated mission might turn out alright after all.

He signaled Tali to release her throttle and piloted the Hawk over Blowback Town. Poe could see out the side view ports that some inhabitants, including Naka Iit, had emerged from their dusty abodes to watch them take off and he swooped low over the tents, rattling merchandise. _Might as well give 'em a little bit of a show, poor backwater sods._ They climbed, exiting Jakku's cloudless atmosphere.

"Hang on, and... maybe hold your breath," Poe instructed Tali smoothly, eyeing her white knuckled grip on the seat. "We'll be fine, it's just another dimension..." his lips quirked, and he knocked the side of his boot gently into the side of her seat. "No exploding into little pieces." _…I hope._ Tali reached back to grip his knee and he slid one hand down to cover her clammy fingers with his warmer ones. After making final adjustments and mentally checking calculations, Poe maneuvered the Hawk, with a sudden lurching jump, into hyperspace.


	10. Chapter 10

As the Hawk launched into the blue tunnel of hyperspace, Tali did her best to ignore the fact that her insides felt like they were trying to crawl up her throat. _Don't throw up, don't throw up._ She was definitely over this whole no windshield thing. _Would reeeally prefer to see where the hell I'm going, holy shit._

Maybe looking at the rush of stars out the side view port instead of blindly feeling this incredible force would be better? She chanced a quick sideways peek. _Nope, definitely not better._

Tali felt a light squeeze on her hand. Glancing back, she realized to her embarrassment that she was gripping Poe's knee like she was aiming to snap his kneecap. She loosened her hold, but he retained a soothing grasp on her hand.

"Hey, look at me," he urged, voice gentle. She snapped her eyes up to his face. "Remember to breathe," Poe continued, a smile slowly spreading across his features, "you're okay. …I forgot how the jump can be for the uninitiated." He tightened his grip on her hand momentarily before releasing it to adjust a few controls. "Don't worry, the rest of it'll go smoother. We'll be in hyperspace for an hour or two."

Tali nodded, letting out a shaky breath, and turned to face forward again. _Just hours to traverse the galaxy… the miracle of technology._ She ran her hand unsteadily over her hair. "Ah, are there any buttons I need to push?"

Poe gave a light chuckle from behind her. "You're off the hook for this bit… the navigation's locked in. I'd recommend getting some shut-eye, if you can." He tapped the side of his boot against her chair. "Those raccoon eyes of yours look like they could use it." Self-consciously, Tali brought her hand up to brush against her face before redirecting the motion towards her plaited hair ( _not that I can redo the braid one-handed anyway)_.

"Not likely," she muttered back, bringing her feet up to sit cross-legged on the faded orange seat. "This is kinda wigging me out…" She spoke over her shoulder to Poe. "And hey, if I'm tired I'm sure you are too, Commander Bleeding Head Wound. You're not gonna fall asleep at the throttle, right?"

He sighed in mock hurt. "No faith." Then his tone lightened, "been flying since I was six years old, I think I can handle this." He stretched his arms up to rest behind his head, lips stretching into a cocky grin. "Besides, we've escaped your junkyard hellscape! I'm the most excited and alert I've been in weeks about that alone."

Tali started to flip a rude gesture in his direction and he reached out to grab her offending hand with his, laughing. "Watch it," she tried to growl, but couldn't keep her lips from twitching in amusement. _Yeah yeah, it is a junkyard. But it's_ _ **my**_ _junkyard._ Poe restrained her fingers within his own, still snickering a bit. "So feisty," he accused with a smirk, before releasing her hand with a slight squeeze. "Get some rest."

Tali restrained the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Fine, _Commander_. Anything else?"

"Nope!" Poe responded brightly, leaning back in his chair. She sighed. _Hard to argue._ She hadn't slept for any length of time since… before Tuanul. _Father. Has it really only been a couple of days?_ Part of her didn't want to sleep, didn't want to stop moving or stop thinking, out of fear that given the chance, the images of fire and death she'd shoved back would consume her mind. _I burned so many bodies._

Tali leaned her head back against the worn vinyl and tried to focus on the soft sound of Poe absently humming something from his spot just behind her. Her eyelids drifted closed. His warm voice was a nice distraction from her troubled thoughts and the disquieting sensation of traveling through hyperspace.

"Hey, sleepyhead, you buckled in?" Tali was shaken out of dark dreams and back into consciousness by Poe's mellow voice and a warm hand on her shoulder. She lifted a hand to rub her face, nodding, and unfolded her legs. "Er, yeah. What'd I miss?" She asked, throat scratchy.

Poe turned back to his controls with an amused snort. "Aw, a whole lot of blue shadowy shit, it was riveting," He flipped a switch, squinting up through the view ports. "Just wanna make sure you're holding on—we're jumping back into realspace in three… two…"

The Hawk lurched out of hyperspace before Tali could freak herself out too much about it. As the streaking stars formed back into their usual flecks of light, she released a pent-up breath, staring out at the foreign space landscape.

Poe let out a whoop of excitement. "Alright! There she is!" He banked the Hawk, swooping them towards a verdant planet. _So… green. Damn._

"…Should be in comlink range," he muttered, eyeing an instrument panel. "Hey, if you want to grab that communicator next to you and hold it this way, I'll let 'em know we're coming." Tali complied, unhooking the device and handing it over for him to do the talking. Probably better that way. _I wouldn't know what to say… 'hey, how are you, Resistance? I'm a Jakku Militia woman you don't know but I want to join your team, we're good right?'_

Come to think of it, what _was_ she going to say when they actually landed? Would they accept her, no questions asked? Or was there some kind of interrogation, an initiation process? She didn't know anything about these people. _Hope they're cool._ She swallowed uncomfortably as Poe rattled off some information into the com. _Secret password?_

"…Black Leader, reporting back. Piloting a HWK-290 light freighter, coming in for landing in T minus, ah, two minutes… yes. It is. I am in fact alive, Lieutenant… I'm sure you did. Like those bucket heads could contain me? …Yeah, you let her know." Disengaging the com, Poe tilted the craft over a lush forest as a large concrete building and landing strip came into view. Tali, gaze glued to the side view ports, couldn't stop staring at the trees. _Was that…a deer? This planet is beautiful._

Dropping the Hawk incrementally into lower gear in a low, slow approach, Poe instructed her when to release the landing gear and engage the reverse thrusters. They pulled up into an easy landing, and Tali breathed a sigh of relief at the renewed contact with solid ground. _Guess flying's not really my thing._ She gratefully unfastened the seatbelt strapping her in.

Her relief didn't last long, as with their landing she immediately noticed the growing crowd of people in uniforms hastening in their direction. Tali bit her chapped lip. _These people look… serious._ Probably noticing her wide-eyed stare, Poe pulled her gently towards him with her good arm. He ducked his head, forcing her to meet his dark eyes. "Hey, you okay? …The Resistance are the good guys, remember." A slightly crooked grin formed on his face, and he lifted a hand to brush a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. "And for what it's worth, I'm glad you decided to come with me and join us."

 _Aw. I think I might be, too… guess we'll see._ She felt the corners of her mouth lift, but raised an eyebrow at him. "Says the man who told me to go home and keep babysitting pirates." Lips tightening, Poe gave her a sideways look, stepping away and swiftly pulling her by the hand with him towards the exit. " _Not_ my exact words," he grumbled, "…and I've since amended my position. Now come on, meet my people."

Breaking away from him to grab her staff, Tali followed Poe out of the Hawk, squaring her shoulders resolutely before climbing down. She sucked in a breath when her booted feet made contact with the pavement, taking in the imposing buildings and hangar of starfighters. And… quite a little crowd of Resistance fighters, all with neat hair and sharp uniforms. _Damn._ She shifted uncomfortably in her own bloody, dirty tunic, wishing that she'd thought to wrap her scarves back around her face. She didn't like feeling so exposed to these strangers.

Except… she surveyed them. No one seemed to be paying her much attention anyway. The crowd ( _well, what, six-ish people? That's a crowd to me)_ was focused on Poe, concernedly asking questions and greeting him, but moving around him in a way that was almost… formal? Like they were all deferring to him... she felt a strange sinking in her gut. _Wait… is he actually a big deal? Or are they just very regimented here?_ Tali wasn't exactly sure what Poe's position in the Resistance was, but these people's body language was making it seem like he might be more important than she had realized. _…Shit._ The thought made her uncomfortable. _What am I doing here?_ Was he going to immediately leave to go and do important things? Unbidden, an unpleasant knot formed in her throat at the prospect of losing contact with him.

A new group of people marched their way over, joining the group around Poe. They were led by an imposing woman in a dark jacket. She was obviously in charge, and the crowd of fighters parted for her respectfully, the group dynamic changing as she came to stand in front of Poe. Her brown hair was braided intricately, and though she looked to be a few decades older than Tali, she retained an imperious beauty. Tali eyed her curiously.

Poe stood at respectful attention. "General Organa," he greeted lowly. _General? Wait, father had talked about a female Rebel leader…_

The General's drawn face relaxed a bit as a small smile formed on her features. "Commander Dameron. I'm so glad to see you've returned safely." They clasped hands briefly, before General Organa turned towards the Hawk and Tali. "Although it appears you are a bit worse for wear, and under unfamiliar circumstances."

Poe gave a rueful laugh. "You could say that, General. I crash landed on Jakku after escaping the First Order. Luckily, Militia Officer Taliya Zev here found me, led me through the desert, and got us a ship out." _Well, that's a generous way of describing it…_ "But my mission… has BB-8 been located?"

General Organa's mouth tightened. "Yes and no. Come with me, we'll talk about this in the briefing room." She took a step or two back but then stopped, turning to meet Tali's eyes. The General's piercing gaze made Tali want to shrink away and disappear into the background of the bustling hangar. What was she thinking, coming to join forces with these people, imagining they'd welcome a nobody policewoman from a junkyard backwater? _This lady is a freaking General? And she's personally concerned about Poe?_

But to Tali's surprise, General Organa approached her, and the older woman's features softened slightly as she studied Tali's face. "Officer Zev, was it? Thank you. The Resistance is indebted to you for your aid to our Commander. Now please, follow me," she reached out as if to shake hands, but then the General's gaze shifted to Tali's stiff arm and the blood staining her sleeve. "…And we'll get you patched up in the medical bay."

General Organa didn't wait for a reply before turning on her heel and leading the way towards the command building. Tali swallowed thickly. _The General just… thanked me._ She wordlessly watched Organa take a step or two before the fleeting grasp of a hand on her shoulder snapped Tali out of her dumbstruck state. Poe brushed past her with a sideways smile, gesturing forwards with his chin. His long strides soon brought him in step with the General, and they conversed in low, serious tones as Tali followed behind, still feeling out of place.

She could sense a growing number of eyes watching her, which wasn't helping to ease any of her discomfort. The crowd, some of whom dispersed but most of whom followed towards the building, had begun to pay Tali more attention after the General had acknowledged her. It seemed like being connected (in however ultimately fleeting a way) to Poe Dameron, apparently a Big Deal Commander, invited some curiosity as well. _Ugh._

Tali looked resolutely ahead, taking in the imposing building, and tried not to stare back at the multitude of uniform-clad fighters they passed. _So, this is the Resistance, huh?_ She only hoped that with these disciplined people, she could see her father's murder avenged. In the meantime, she couldn't keep her eyes or thoughts from returning to the straight-backed pilot in front of her.


	11. Chapter 11

"…And remarkably enough, the starship they escaped in may be none other than the Millennium Falcon. We're running scans, of course. But so far, nothing."

 _This mission has become whole new levels of weird._ In the control room, Poe faced his indomitable General. She was still fierce as ever, but after the briefing looked maybe a bit older, perhaps sadder, with the certain knowledge that Kylo Ren continued to actively work against the Resistance and misuse the Force. _Use it to hurt, to… violate._ A lingering throb twitched to life in Poe's skull.

He felt guilty about the mission going awry, about his divulged secrets. Almost as if he'd disappointed a parent. But of course there was no reprimand, only understanding and relief at his return… and he knew from General Organa's stony face that she was feeling guilty as well. He wished she wouldn't. Poe would never comprehend how the son of this woman he respected above almost all others in the galaxy had turned his back on everything his family stood for so thoroughly. Not for the first time, Poe inwardly cursed Ren ( _Ben_ , he reminded himself, _the fucker's still Ben Solo no matter what concocted name he's calling himself these days)_ and his terrible decisions.

The news that BB-8's (and thus the map's) whereabouts remained unknown to all interested parties had left him feeling lukewarm at best, until Poe learned that a fugitive from the First Order was one of those suspected to be in possession of his wayward droid. _Maybe Finn made it after all!_ His heart felt a bit lighter in his chest. And at least the First Order hadn't managed to get their hands on the map. Although the Resistance having no idea where in the galaxy BB-8 was either wasn't exactly comforting.

Alright, overall… the situation could definitely be better. Poe lifted a hand, tiredly brushing it through his hair. _But damn, it feels good to be back._ Back with his team, where he belonged. Back to a world with _trees_ , for god's sake.

A soft smile ghosted across his lips as he remembered the look of wonder on Tali's face when she initially took in the forested planet. He glanced back towards where she stood, awkwardly a bit out of the circle that he, a few aides, the General, and the white-haired Major Caluan Ematt created. She was included in the discussion since Poe had quietly informed General Organa on the walk over that he trusted her, that she wished to join their cause, and that she already knew about the map. But Tali seemed to have been subtly increasing the distance between the two of them since they'd arrived on D'Qar, and her answers to the commanders' occasional questions had gradually grown less forthcoming. Whether the shift happened consciously or unconsciously he couldn't tell. But Poe found that he didn't like it. He also didn't like the nervous tension radiating off her small body, the way she looked as if she wanted to disappear.

The extreme paleness of her drawn face and the dark, dried blood stain on the sleeve of her tunic caught his attention, the colors garish under the large room's artificial light. _Shit._ _Or maybe that tension is from the still untreated blaster wound?_

Clearing his throat, Poe brought his gaze back to General Organa, who was peering at him intently. With the end of her explanation, the rest of the assembled party had begun shuffling back to their posts around computer monitors. "I'm ready to leave as soon as BB-8 is located, General. In the meantime, Officer Taliya should visit the medical bay."

The General nodded slowly, gaze flickering over his face. "You should pay medical a visit as well, Commander." Her words reminded him of the bruises and scrapes covering his body... not to mention the throbbing in his head. _Probably should. Not that they can help with the mental fuckery._ Her eyes dropped to his dirty clothing. "…And it appears some cleaning up is in order." She turned to Tali. "Dameron speaks highly of you, which is testament enough for me at the moment. Lieutenant Karana will situate you for now, and discuss in what capacity you may join us when you're fit to do so." Moving towards the bank of scanners with an aide, the General dismissed them both with a nod and a final "be ready, Commander," to Poe.

Tali murmured her thanks to the General as Karana, a statuesque grey-skinned Twi'lek woman, stepped towards her, dwarfing her small frame. _Small but fierce._ With a slight smile, the Lieutenant motioned Tali out and into the hall to head down to the medical bay. Poe moved to follow them, but the General's voice stopped him. "Poe. You're certain you're alright?"

He forced a smile, meeting her eyes across the room. She was asking whether he needed any recovery time before diving back into the fray, he knew, and a small part of him almost wanted to take her up on the veiled offer. But he was the best pilot in the Resistance. He had a mission to complete—one that had become personal. And a little thing like a head wound and mild exhaustion wouldn't be stopping him from carrying out his duties. _Hell no._ "Positive, General. Let's find my droid."

She studied him critically, lips thinned, but must have sensed the steel in his tone. She nodded resignedly, turning towards the computers in real dismissal this time, and Poe headed out after Tali.

He caught up to her and Karana as they walked through the doors into the medical bay, Tali answering the Lieutenant's questions about her training and relevant skills. The Twi'lek noted down her answers gracefully on a tablet computer. "Considering the relative… informality of your training, you might start with perimeter patrol or general mechanical repair…" the grey-skinned woman smiled softly at Tali, who hesitantly smiled back. "There's no shortage of things breaking around here. And if you want to join the next class of fighters for combat training, we can arrange that as well. The base is rather in flux at the moment, however, what with the threat of the First Order heating up. The schedule has been irregular." _Good, have her fix kitchen equipment or some shit instead._ Poe was beginning to realize that he didn't enjoy the thought of Tali being shot at by Stormtroopers. _Again._

Karana continued, "and speaking of irregularities, the bunks are a bit crowded with recent recruits as well. You may share a room with a few other soldiers for the time being, or we could—"

"She can stay with me." The words were out of Poe's mouth before he was fully cognizant of the thought. The Lieutenant turned to him in surprise at the interruption, and Tali's wide eyes snapped to his face as well. He backpedaled, searching her face. "I mean, that is, if she wants. If you want. If that would make you feel slightly more comfortable, Tali." _Oh shit wait did that sound creepy? Not trying to be creepy. Am I rambling?_ He glanced at Karana, "I mean, I rank high enough around here to have a couch," he explained slightly peevishly in response to her suspiciously raised eyebrows. _And with any luck, BB-8 will be spotted and I'll be back out in space soon, so Tali can have the damn place to herself. Somebody might as well sleep in it._

The Twi'lek and Poe both turned towards Tali, who met his eyes with an expression that was partly hesitant but mostly grateful. "Um, I would appreciate that actually," she swallowed. "Just… for tonight or whatever. If you're sure that it's okay."

He nodded, lips curving in a slight smile he hoped was reassuring and not awkward.

"You're… sort of the only person I know here," Tali murmured under her breath, so low he wasn't certain she meant to speak the explanation aloud.

Karana looked between the two of them, tentacle headtails twitching. Poe met her gaze squarely. No way a lieutenant would argue with him, anyway. She didn't, simply switching off her tablet with a firm gesture. "…Well, alright then. We'll figure everything out for you soon enough. For now, I'll grab a spare uniform for you to change into." With a small smile towards Tali, Karana left.

A nurse arrived almost immediately. The dark-featured, older woman greeted them with a smile, motioning Tali towards a seat. "Sorry for the delay. I'm Nia, dear. And hello, Commander! So glad to hear of your safe return. My lord, the whole base was buzzing when we heard you were captured. I'll be checking you over in just a minute." He fought the urge to raise an eyebrow at the look the nurse ran over his body. _Checking me over, or checking me out?_

The older woman smiled at Tali. "I see we've got a problem on the shoulder here. Do you mind?" She brandished small scissors, preparing to cut the fabric away from the burn. Tali shrugged, so Nia began cutting at her sleeve, revealing a lighter sleeveless linen shirt layered underneath. Not that Poe was looking.

"Oh dear, blaster fire… I see. And what's your name, dear?" The nurse intoned softly, prodding gently at the grisly burn. Tali winced minutely but tried to smile. "Tali Zev, ma'am. And yep, I got clipped by a Stormtrooper."

Nia winced sympathetically, grabbing supplies from a medical droid that rolled to her side. "Are you a soldier, then?" She asked offhandedly, tapping a syringe. "This serum is protein enhanced, it'll help rebuild the muscle in that shoulder."

Tali nodded, watching as the nurse cleaned a spot with antiseptic. "Ah, not quite a soldier. Militia officer. I'm just joining the Resistance now." Nia nodded, administering the shot, and then returned the syringe to the droid, exchanging it for a tube of viscous white fluid.

"Well, welcome to the ranks!" The older woman announced kindly. "This salve will help repair your skin. It'll heal much faster. There'll still be a scar, I'm afraid."

Tali gestured dismissively with her other arm. "No worries, I've got a few," she said drily. "Thank you so much."

Nia smiled at Tali as she stuck a bandage over the wound. "Not a problem, young lady. Any other issues?" She surveyed Tali's body, then focused on the bloody spot on the side of her head. "Here's another cream to help that swelling go down… not much else to do for the head, unfortunately… there. You're all set."

Tali smiled, rising, and vacated the spot for Poe. Nia smiled at him. "Commander Dameron, it's always a pleasure to see you… although I do wish we could meet under more pleasant circumstances." Tali looked like she was trying not to laugh, and Poe managed a winning smile. "Ah, yes… well, under your care Nurse Nia, the circumstances are as pleasant as they could be." The older woman glowed at the compliment, fussing over him with salve and bandages.

After being poked and prodded (possibly a bit more than strictly necessary _—was taking off one's shirt usually required to treat bruised ribs with liniment?_ ) by the (overly) attentive nurse and given pain medication and extra salve for later, Poe and Tali were free to go. An aide had dropped off a replacement communicator for Poe and a change of clothes for Tali while he was being treated. Poe led their way from medical to the residence wing, the structure built into the surrounding hilly landscape.

Most people they passed in the hall waved and smiled at him, his fellow pilots especially sharing relieved, friendly greetings. Poe usually hardly noticed the attention, but he couldn't help but do so now, with Tali shrinking slightly further back from him with every interaction. He frowned at that. _She kinda antisocial or something?_ Finally, they entered a lift to his place on the upper floor. Once inside, he faced her and ducked his head, forcing Tali to meet his eyes. "You good?"

She smiled, but it was a slight thing hardly worthy of the expression's label. "You're kind of a celebrity around here, huh?"

He raised a brow. "Nah, it's just that everybody knows us pilots… it's the bright orange jump suits. Very memorable."

Tali's smile became more real. "Oh, really? Can't wait to see that." She sobered. "But, ah… thank you. Very much. For putting in a good word for me, and letting me sleep on your couch. I really appreciate it."

 _You don't have to sleep on the couch, I'll sleep on the couch_. "My pleasure," he intoned gently as they got off the lift on a much quieter floor, starting down the long hallway. "I owed you one, anyway. Thanks for not leaving me in the desert to get eaten by raptors." He knocked gently into her (good) shoulder as she smirked at the tiled floor.

"Of course. If you were carrion, who would Nurse Nia flirt with?" Tali asked, eyes wide with feigned guilelessness. _Touché._ Poe snorted, rolling his dark eyes towards the ceiling, "probably every other Resistance fighter half her age. You should see her with new recruits." He stopped at his door, keying in a code, before motioning Tali inside. "Go on, you."

She brushed past him into the modest chamber, still smiling slightly. He decided that he liked it when she smiled for real. He motioned towards a smooth white door with his head, setting the communicator down on a small table. "Alright, and there's the bathroom. I'll be an exceedingly noble gentleman and offer you the chance to get cleaned up first."

Tali hesitated for only a moment before her desire for cleanliness apparently outweighed any desire to be polite. "…Well, if you insist. Thanks. I'll be fast." She threw a grin at him over her shoulder and disappeared into the bathroom. _Hope she's not lying about the speed_ , Poe thought with a sigh. _I need a damn shower._ He ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw, accidentally smearing some of the antibiotic ointment spread over his cuts. _Ugh._ He unceremoniously wiped his hand on his shirt, then considered the article of clothing's state. _Should probably burn this thing_. He drew the sweat and blood stained linen over his head, bundling it up and tossing it haphazardly through the doorway into his bedroom. _Another one for the grease rag bin._

Luckily for Poe, Tali bathed with the same characteristic efficiency with which she did everything else. She reentered the main room minutes later, startling Poe from where he leaned forward on the couch, elbows to knees, resting his eyes and both desperately wanting and dreading a call from the General about going out to retrieve BB-8. "Alright, sorry, it's all yours," she said breathlessly, then muttered, "this serum stuff works really well," experimentally flexing her wounded arm.

Poe found himself slightly unprepared for the sight that greeted him when he opened his eyes. Tali wasn't scantily clad or anything, she was just wearing a simple Resistance regulation tan tunic. But she was… clean, and a bit flushed from the warm water. And in his room, all barefoot and somehow softer looking away from the harsh desert, damp hair down and drying into messy waves around her shoulders. When she'd been dusty and covered in sweaty, bloody scarves, he'd known she was pretty, but now… he bit his lip. "You clean up alright, former partner," Poe deadpanned, making a blush rise to Tali's delicate features, which in turn made a slow grin spread across his face.

"Uh…thanks," she stammered awkwardly, dropping her eyes from his, before gesturing behind her towards the vacant bathroom again with the hand that didn't hold her bundle of filthy clothing. He was glad to see that her wounded arm was already in slightly better working condition—the muscle would rebuild more with sleep.

 _But_ _yes. Shower._ Poe nodded and brushed past her, hands lingering at her sides when he moved by perhaps just a second or two longer than necessary. He caught the scent of Tali's hair in the brief contact before he stepped into the tiled bathroom… she smelled like his soap. He liked it. …Maybe too much. He shut the door with a click.

 _Cold shower it is._


	12. Chapter 12

**Whoo boy, real life kicked my ass this week. There's more in the works, but I really wanted to get this much of the story out there at least! Thanks so so much for reading, reviewing, etc :)**

...

Tali was beginning to regret the decision to ditch her (admittedly sweaty and gross) desert scarves, due to both the anonymity they could have provided under the curious gazes of Resistance members and the fact that she was having a hard time calming the blush from her features just now. There was a queer lightness in her gut. Was Poe trying to keep her off-balance with his parting compliment about her appearance? Not to mention the bare chest, the general smoulder? _More importantly, was he serious?_

In an uncharacteristic fit of girlishness, Tali grabbed her dusty goggles from where they sat on top of her bundle of clothes, peering at the distorted miniature image of her face that was reflected back at her in the lenses. She tossed them back down almost immediately, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at herself. _Small. Nondescript. Thick eyebrows. You know what you fuckin' look like, get a grip._

She testily blew out a breath, shoving her hand through the drying strands of her hair. It had always been long when Tali was child, then she'd chopped it all off in an attempt to emulate the hard-ass militancy of the other Militia members when she'd joined a couple years ago. But after finding it easier to just tie her hair back under layers of scarves, she'd let it grow out a bit. By now it curled around her shoulders, and she ran her fingers absently through the ends.

Struggling to shake herself out of the momentary funk (… _but did he bite his lip?!_ ), Tali gingerly reapplied the goopy medicated burn lotion to her damaged shoulder. She rotated the joint experimentally, feeling only a brief flash of pain. _They certainly have better meds here._

She strode to the sink at the other end of the compact space to rinse the salve from her hands before unceremoniously bending to drink straight from the tap, feeling a bit uncomfortable about rifling through cupboards for a glass. Rising, Tali wiped her face on her shoulder and surveyed the room. It was rather… spartan, with few personal effects other than a single bookcase and what looked like a star map hanging on one wall. A canister of protein granules on the counter. And of course whatever was in Poe's bedroom, which she was not about to go and check out. _Wonder if he has a house somewhere else._ The thought sobered her. _A non-wartime life somewhere else?_

Regardless of his life circumstances, Tali was undeniably glad that Poe had volunteered his place for her to temporarily stay at. Definitely because she was feeling a bit adrift surrounded by so many strangers and he was at least a friendly face, and totally not because of the pathetically worrisome twinge she felt in her chest when she thought about parting ways with the good-humored ( _…_ and good looking) pilot. _Totally._ She was beginning to appreciate how being around him was just… pleasant. Although his easygoing physicality was occasionally sort of overwhelming, she found his presence very… warm. And somehow comforting. She'd miss it.

 _The rest of the Resistance people seem alright, at least._ Tali ungracefully flopped onto the couch, trying to keep the weight off her healing shoulder. _Lieutenant Karana was really nice… and beautiful. And_ _ **tall**_ _._ She'd only ever seen one other Twi'lek, on a rare trip off-planet with her father who had pointed out a blue-green, tentacled man. The thought of her kindly father made her breath catch. Tali both wanted to cherish the fond memories of him and avoid thinking about him entirely… what was she going to do without him? Could she return to Jakku once this business was over, continue to follow Zuvio without his comforting guidance, maybe try to train new recruits with the same thoughtful edge that her father had tried to instill in her? Tali attempted to regulate her panicked breathing. The future felt like a black hole. Better to focus on other things in the present and sink into a pit of despair later. Like after the First Order was destroyed. _First things first._

Tali furrowed her brow, thoughts shifting to the capable looking people she'd glimpsed during her short tour of the base… the First Order was terrifying, but surely the Resistance could handle them? Everyone here seemed pretty confident. _Like they know they're on the right side of history_. She couldn't help but feel even more unremarkable next to the disciplined Resistance fighters. Why the hell was Poe, the fancy-pants pilot ( _no way everyone looks at him like that because of some orange jumpsuit)_ , still hanging out with her again? Tali closed her eyes, exasperated with herself, and did her best to banish the sullen thoughts. _Because he's a nice fucking guy._ Goddamn, she never got hung up over men like this.

…Not that there was a surfeit of attractive human males to get flustered about on Jakku. Even rarer to find any who weren't involved in some kind of nefarious pirate shit. Tali repressed a shudder at the thought of one guy she'd had an ill-fated fling with in her teens. Last she'd heard, he'd joined some mutant Death Gang— _probably so shot up with chemicals he'll never be functional again_. Tali couldn't honestly say it was a huge loss to the world.

Just as she started to drift off on the firm gray couch, the bathroom door opened with a low squeak and Poe reemerged, patting his freshly shaven face dry. Cracking an eye open, Tali resisted the urge to sigh at the sight of him clad only in a soft-looking pair of pants. _Is the man averse to shirts?_ Not that she was complaining. She'd seen ( _alright, ogled_ ) Poe's solidly built torso before, of course. But scrubbed of residual dirt and blood, his bronzed skin nearly glowed, even in the room's somewhat harsh overhead lighting. _But damn, those bruises on his ribcage look nasty_. She raised her eyes to study his newly smooth, angular face as he walked the bundle of his abused desert clothing towards his bedroom, dropping it into a basket. His dark hair looked nicer cleaned of all the dried blood too. He'd brushed it back from his forehead to dry in waves. She realized she was staring. _But hey, the man's got a nice face… and everything else. …Even with the new scars._

Poe returned to slap some liniment over his scrapes, and caught her gaze with a half smirk, eyes dark and sleepy. "Did I not say that you could sleep in the real bed? You'd better, or I'll feel guilty for providing my desert savior a crap deal on bunking arrangements."

Tali raised her eyebrows skeptically. "'Savior' is a bit dramatic," she mumbled. _Especially considering how I initially entertained the thought of picking your pockets and lighting out of there, leaving you for dead._

Ignoring her words and stretching his arms out in front of his body, Poe glanced towards the bedroom, then back at Tali. His face was tilted so he looked a bit down his nose at her, and his heavy lidded eyes held amusement. "And don't worry, I just did laundry. No lingering filth."

She couldn't help but crack a smile from where she lay on her side. "I'm good here, thank you."

Poe crossed his arms, facing her squarely. "Nope. I gotta be ready to move out as fast as possible anyway, so nearer the door will be better. Now c'mon, get up." When Tali stubbornly didn't move, only raising an incredulous eyebrow at his insistence, Poe heaved a long-suffering sigh, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "Dammit, partner."

For a second she thought that she'd won and he would leave her alone. But with a sudden twist of his lips, Poe took the couple steps needed to cross the room, bending down and casually scooping Tali off the couch in one smooth motion. She squeaked in surprise, raising her arms to ward him off, but he simply folded her into his warm chest, heedless of her muffled protests but carefully gripping only her good shoulder. "Ah, hush," he admonished, grinning down at her sputtering, red face, "let a guy sweep you off your feet here."

A few seconds later, Tali found herself gently dumped onto a (okay, a much softer and more comfortable) padded surface. Still, she glared up at Poe's shamelessly amused expression, face heated both in annoyance and embarrassment at his warm, masculine proximity. "Uncalled for!" She nearly hissed. _You could've hurt yourself, aggravated your healing ribs, idiot._

He only shrugged unrepentantly before reaching over her to grab a pillow. Grin still firmly in place, he tousled her still-damp hair with one hand as he straightened,. "Yeah, yeah." She immediately brushed her hair back from her face, shooting Poe a glare as he backed out of the room. "Sleep well! Don't burst a blood vessel," he snickered, disappearing past the door frame.

Tali gave a frustrated huff after him. _Fine. I was just trying not to be a pain in the ass._ She rolled onto her side, turning her face towards the far wall. _High-handed pilot. It's a good thing you're pretty._ The pillow smelled like him, which she found somehow simultaneously soothing and unsettling.

But despite the unfamiliar setting and (or maybe because of) the feeling of being surrounded by Poe's presence, Tali found her body relaxing almost immediately. The last few days' whirlwind of activity had taken a toll.

...

It felt like minutes but had probably been a few hours when the buzzing of the communicator and Poe's answering dull groan from the other room forced Tali back into consciousness. She heard a brief shuffling, followed by his voice, ragged with sleep. "…Ah, affirmative… shit. …I'm on it. Down in five."

 _They found the droid, then?_ A strange need to see Poe's face before he left compelled her to slide off the bed, bare feet hitting the floor noiselessly as she crept towards the doorway. But he had apparently leapt into action simultaneously, and she nearly collided with him as he rounded the corner as well. His tired eyes momentarily met hers in surprise before he swiftly turned towards the closet, grabbing a dark shirt to throw over his tousled head.

"BB-8's been located," Poe explained quickly, voice muffled by the shirt he drew over his face. "In a pirate castle, no less. _And_ the First Order's deployed their superweapon," he continued over his shoulder as he strode back out of the room and bent to tie on a pair of boots, Tali following him into the main living space. "So it's a real party in the galaxy at the moment. Gotta go fuck up some Bucketheads." His voice was bitter.

 _Superweapon?_ Tali worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Poe looked up, his expression hard. "Hosnian Prime… all those people. Fuck," he muttered under his breath, rising to grab the communicator.

Tali sucked in a breath as he reached for the door handle. "Hey, uh, you'll be careful, right?" She couldn't help but blurt out. _Please be careful._

Poe's hand stilled on the lever as he met her gaze, his dark eyes stormy. One corner of his mouth quirked up. "If you insist." With a last heated glance, he vanished through the door.

Tali let out a shaky breath after his abrupt exit. _Just like that._ She wondered how many enemy troops, exactly, he was up against this time. _Try not to get shot down again, pilot._ An uneasy pang shot through her gut at the thought.

With a sigh, Tali turned around and moved towards the bedroom to straighten the bed linens, newly determined to make herself useful somehow. _So Poe's going to go blow up Stormtroopers. There must be something I can do._ She would also simply prefer to occupy her mind and thus keep herself from worrying ( _about anyone or anything_ , she assured herself), if she was being totally honest.

No way Tali was going to be able to go back to sleep anyway. The atmosphere in the apartment felt oddly bereft after Poe's sudden departure. _Might as well return to the medical bay and get the arm checked out again like I promised, then try to find Lieutenant Karana. Maybe try to find out more about this superweapon._

It was beginning to dawn on Tali that other than an army of trained Stormtroopers, she wasn't quite sure what they were up against. _What Poe's up against_. With him heading out to face the enemy without her, it suddenly seemed more urgent that she understand the political situation. And hopefully become a contributing member of the Resistance. Her father would have approved of that choice.

Gritting her teeth, Tali tried to remember the way back to the medical bay. _Alright, time to be someone._


	13. Chapter 13

After a hurried conference with the General and his squadron and their equally swift trip to the locker room to don flight suits, Poe's thoughts about the Takodana rescue were racing. The warm feeling that had spread in his chest from Tali sending him off with well wishes was gradually quelled by his tension. He swung himself up into the cockpit of his X-Wing, brow furrowed under his helmet. The Resistance had it on good authority (okay… _decent_ authority, the intelligence had come from a pirate's droid after all) that BB-8 was in Maz Kanata's castle, along with General Han Solo of all people. _And maybe Finn! Hope he's okay._

So not only could Poe's botched mission potentially be salvaged, but a great Rebel leader ( _well… formerly_ ) and a First Order defector who could provide classified information ( _not to mention the guy saved my life, I owe him one_ ) needed to be rescued. Just the small matter of an entire First Order garrison stood in the way. _No pressure. Piece of cake, really._

A garrison that might well include Kylo Ren ( _Ben, dammit,_ Poe reminded himself for the umpteenth time). He grit his teeth as a phantom twinge of pain briefly flared in his skull. _Fuck that guy._ Poe fired up the craft's engines, plugging in hyperdrive coordinates with a bit more force than necessary. _Well, it's not every day you see a thousand-year-old pirate queen's castle_. That was something at least. _Provided it hasn't been demolished by the time we get there._

Piloting up and away from the base, Poe relayed commands to his squadron before they made the leap into hyperspace. Takodana was close to several known trade routes, at least. That increased their likelihood of arriving in time... before the First Order destroyed yet more lives, along with the Resistance's last chance at locating Luke Skywalker. _Hang in there, BB-8._

Poe considered again the presence of General Solo and the Millennium Falcon in this mess as his ship hurtled through the alternate dimension's blue tunnel. His father had been a commando under Solo as a member of the elite Pathfinders squad. Poe had heard plenty of Kes Dameron's colorful war stories about their various adventures in the Rebel special forces.

He'd always admired the daring General. _Hell, everyone does, the man's a certified hundred percent bad ass_. But growing up, Poe had considered him a personal hero, even, never daring to try the Kessel Run however much he itched to out of respect for Han's unbroken piloting record. Not to mention the man's role as style inspiration… Poe allowed himself a fleeting moment of grief for his tooled leather jacket, forever lost to the sands of Jakku.

But Solo had sort of lost it when Ben went dark, and he'd taken off to rejoin the smuggling world before Poe had really gotten to know him. He couldn't imagine what it had felt like for Han in the aftermath of the awful massacre, probably feeling somewhat responsible as the father of the murderer, but just up and leaving like that… _seemed like a bit of a dick move, honestly_. Poe knew it hadn't been easy for General Organa, skilled as she was, to run the Resistance by herself in the ensuing years. _Wonder if he'll come back after this._

General Organa didn't exactly talk about her feelings with Poe, but he could tell that her family's estrangement weighed on her. _Fucking Ben_. Han Solo's reappearance now, with the First Order on the offensive and the Resistance so close to contacting Skywalker, felt… significant.

Poe pushed all non-combat thoughts away as the squadron neared Takodana, jumping back into realspace and closing into approach formation. _Time for business._ He loosed a whoop of exhilaration, speeding through the planet's atmospheric layers towards the enemy troops in the distance.

"Head straight at them," he instructed over his comlink, "don't let these thugs scare you." His jaw clenched in preparation for the impending battle, pulse quickening. _No, fear's not in the cards for today_. His overarching feeling was definitely anger.

The Stormtroopers' white armor gleamed in the sunlight as Poe swooped in, coming recklessly close to treetops while he took out several TIE fighters. _Oh hello, is that an Assault Lander? Well fuck you very much—_

His strafing run continued with a blast centered on a group of Stormtroopers, and Poe gave a sharp cry of triumph, barrel rolling into a turn without letting up on the assault. A fierce exhilaration filled him. _This, this is what I'm meant to do._ He never felt as good as he did behind the throttle—they didn't call him the best pilot in the Resistance for nothing. He loosed another energy burst. And he wanted to destroy these bastards. Bare his teeth. They had hurt people he cared about, people who didn't deserve any of this.

Poe caught sight of Solo, the Wookiee Chewbacca, and… _yep, that's Finn!_ Heblasted a few troopers out from around them, taking a wickedly close shot. A fellow fighter's voice crackled through his comlink. " _Getting a little low, Black Leader._ "

 _Yeah yeah… stuff it, Wexley,_ Poe thought with good-natured vexation. His face split in a savage grin as he swooped up immediately to take out an advancing TIE fighter with a single energy burst. "Nothing like living dangerously, Captain!"

The dogfight continued, Poe looping around to fire at more enemy troops and occasionally issuing commands. The First Order unit seemed a bit unprepared for the Resistance's surprise assault. _Good._ He swiftly destroyed another cluster of troops, whooping with triumph. _Haven't missed a shot yet_.

Poe saw Kanata's castle continuing to crumble in his peripheral vision _… the pirates didn't deserve this… they're politically neutral, for god's sake._ _And all those billions of people in the Hosnian system just living their lives sure as hell didn't deserve this, didn't deserve to be exploded alive, you motherfuckers_.

Poe continued his assault, red haze of fury doing nothing to diminish his aim. But after a few more minutes under heavy fire, the First Order troops started to retreat, their command shuttle pulling out initially and TIE fighters following.

Clearing his combat-induced tunnel vision with a quick shake of his head, Poe took down a straggling enemy fighter before giving his squadron the return signal. "Alright team, moving out. Good work—we're done here." _…Too easy._ Now it was up to General Organa and the ground troops to pick up the pieces… well, hopefully to pick up their allies and BB-8 in one piece. He chose not to dwell on why the First Order had retreated so soon… _couldn't mean anything good_.

It wasn't until he was rocketing through the blue tunnel of hyperspace back to headquarters that Poe realized that for the first time, his focus hadn't been entirely on the mission, on his all-consuming end game… instead, he was thinking about the innocent lives lost, and those that still hung in the balance. _Huh._ He found his thoughts immediately turning towards the small, fierce desert woman back on base whose sense of duty to her people tended to outweigh her sense of self-preservation. _Someone's rubbing off on me._

...

Back on base, Poe climbed out of his X-Wing, freeing himself from the helmet and running a hand through his sweaty hair. An excited string of Binary bleeps alerted him to BB-8's presence before he saw the loyal astromech bowling towards him at full speed. Poe felt a grin stretch across his face as he greeted the excited droid. "Hey, my buddy!"

Midway through a warp speed recounting of his adventures, BB-8 alerted him to Finn's presence. Poe rose, grinning, and rushed towards the former Stormtrooper to embrace him warmly. After a round of congratulations, exclamations, and a brief explanation of Poe's time on Jakku and rescue by Tali (at the mention of whom Finn raised his eyebrows and gave Poe a crafty smile), Poe finally noticed the taller man's clothing.

"You completed my mission, Finn! …That's my jacket." _Holy shit, so it didn't get swallowed by sinking sand?!_

Chagrined, Finn immediately moved to return the article, but Poe laughingly stopped him. _Whatever, don't need the thing._ "No, no, keep it. It suits you." Smiling, Poe bit his lip, clapping Finn on the shoulder. _The galaxy works in mysterious ways._ "You're a good man, Finn."

After agreeing to bring Finn to see the General about launching a rescue mission for his friend Rey ( _damn, for a formerly brainwashed drone, guy knows how to make friends_ ), Poe led him towards the conference room. He couldn't help but glance at the many faces of the fighters rushing around on the tarmac they passed on the walk over. The one he was ( _sort of, maybe_ ) hoping to see was nowhere to be found.

…Not that he was expecting her to, like, run through the crowd dramatically and leap into his arms or something… _but still_. He searched the crowd fruitlessly for her face.

The General, predictably, wanted to know any and all information Finn had about Starkiller Base before she'd consider rescue plans. The need to destroy the First Order's superweapon had grown more urgent as the Resistance came to the realization that D'Qar was more than likely their next target. And after the galaxy witnessed what had happened to the Hosnian System… _my god, the sheer power. Horrible_. If it was possible to say that anything good had come of such immense, terrible destruction, at least the Republic was now well and truly convinced that the First Order needed to be taken out. As soon as possible.

As Finn was hustled off towards a bay of computers to explain what he could of the base's structure, General Organa met Poe's eyes. "Captain Wexley will perform the recon flight, Commander… you're free to go for the moment. We'll hold a briefing and make a plan of attack upon his return." Her eyes softened slightly as she ran her gaze over his disheveled face before turning to follow after Finn, continuing over her shoulder, "go ahead. I'll call you, Poe. …Oh, and I believe Officer Zev is in the medical bay."

Poe raised a hand in a half-hearted salute as she walked away, lips quirking. He glanced towards Finn, who was surrounded by eager technicians. Maybe Poe should stay for the description of the superweapon, or for moral support, or whatever, but _… he'll be fine._ Dude survived a TIE fighter crash and a lifetime of servitude to evil, after all.

Poe ran a hand through his damp hair tiredly. _The medical bay?_ Well, maybe he needed these bruised ribs inspected anyway… he reached down to make sure the comlink was still securely affixed to his belt and turned on his heel. After all, what if the worse case scenario occurred, they couldn't destroy the Starkiller in time and D'Qar's star went supernova, killing all the Resistance? _And maybe there's someone I want to see_.

Poe exited the conference room swiftly. His gaze didn't linger on any of the faces he passed in the hallway. He was beginning to understand that there was really only one he wanted to see.


	14. Chapter 14

**AGH I've had this half-written for days trying to find time to finish it. Real life: screw that noise. THANK YOU so so much for the continued feedback, seriously, I so appreciate every one of you :')**

...

"…Ah, fusing pen, please?" Tali blindly reached a hand back towards Nia, who obediently dropped the required tool into her palm.

"How's it looking in there, dear? You sure your arm's feeling well enough for all this?" The nurse asked for what felt like the millionth time. Tali blew a few stray strands of hair out of her face in mild frustration before pasting on a smile ( _man, I miss my scarves… could scowl all day under those, no problem_ ) and sliding sideways, shifting to meet the older woman's eyes over her shoulder.

"I'm just fine, Nia." Looking up at the fluorescent lights of the operating room made her squint, and Tali turned back to the pried-open wiring access panel. She stretched her neck a bit before shuffling back under the defunct droid's splayed metal arm. "And this guy should be all set in… just another minute…"

The awkward position on her back on the chilly floor, dragged half under a modified FX model medical droid, wasn't exactly comfortable for any part of Tali's desert-abused body (least of all her still-healing shoulder). But she'd be damned if the cheerful woman's concern for her health thwarted her chance to be useful in this small way. Letting out a pensive breath, Tali peered into the robot's mechanical guts. _Stupid thing's almost fixed… I hope._ Flipping the fuser in her hand, she gritted her teeth and sliced a couple of wires together.

Due to the nature of the Resistance as a secret force whose upkeep and operations depended largely on donations from concerned senators, much of their supplies were, in essence, Republic or even older Rebel Alliance hand-me-downs. The multi-armed droid healthcare assistant was in pretty good condition (other than the electrical problems Tali had been working on for the past hour), but it was also more than thirty years old. So the Resistance medical personnel, who weren't trained in mechanics anyway, hadn't known what to do when the relatively old-fashioned system shorted out a few days earlier. _Cue Tali, Mistress of Obsolete Junk._

While she was getting her arm checked, she'd overheard an orderly complaining about it, so Tali had volunteered her services. And as luck would have it, she ( _well, sort of_ ) recognized the machine's basic structure and felt confident enough to attempt rewiring. The medical personnel seemed impressed so far, Nia even unduly grateful. _Here's hoping I actually manage to boot this thing back up._ Apparently with the escalating conflict and emphasis on combat starships and droids, more routine maintenance of everyday machinery got shuffled to the backburner. Tali had a feeling that the age of the droid wasn't helping its chances of successful rehab either. _Hero for the common people and their old stuff, that's me. Turns out even Jakku-bred tech skills come in handy sometimes_. Holding the pen between her teeth, she reconnected the newly-fused wire, tightening a screw. _Pretty sure that's right_ …

Absorbed in the completion of her delicate task, Tali didn't notice the heavy booted footsteps approaching her spot on the tiled floor. But there was no missing Nia's besotted voice.

Startled when the woman let out a sudden near-squeal, Tali jerked her head back, almost smashing her skull on the open access panel door.

"Oh, Commander! You're back! Successful, I take it? Well of course you were—" _Oh. …Poe?_ "Need your bruises looked at?" The older woman's voice was just a touch overeager. _Ha. Definitely Poe… goddamn, Nia, the man could be your son ya floozy._ Tali felt the corners of her mouth lift in amusement.

"Ah, thank you, but I think they'll be alright actually." At the sound of Poe's unmistakable warm voice, Tali's expression broadened into a smile. But then… _did he come here to see me?_ Whatever the reason, she was glad he'd shown up. Not that she'd been worried or anything. _Okay, that was a lie._ After all, the last time she'd seen Poe fly a fighter, the thing had ended up a smoking pile of rubble. Submerged in quicksand. She still wasn't sure how he'd managed to stumble away from a crash like that.

Anyway, Tali had grown rather attached to Poe in his alive and non-concussed state. Plus, she well knew what the First Order was like, how merciless they were… her smile faltered. _I burned so many bodies._ She mentally shook herself. _Still, apparently he's the literal best, I'm sure the guy can handle whatever they throw at him_. And apparently he had.

Snapping the access panel closed, Tali awkwardly maneuvered her way out from under the droid. When she emerged, clutching the fusing pen with one hand and raising herself partially up with the other, she met Poe's dark gaze. _Doesn't look much worse for wear..._ she eyed his tousled hair, lips quirking. "Hey! Er, welcome back." _…Was that a weirdly formal greeting? What I meant was hi, glad to see you're in one piece, heard some women in the hall gossiping about you and how your face should be on recruitment posters after you left, not that I carefully eavesdropped or anything…_

"Hi." A grin stretched across Poe's face, and he held out a hand to help her up. Memories of the multiple times on Jakku when she'd spitefully ignored his proffered hand rose in Tali's mind as her fingers met his warmer ones. Their eyes locked as he pulled her firmly to her feet. _So is this trust, then, I guess?_

Once righted, she cleared her throat, dropping her gaze. _He's not letting go of my hand._ "So, er, you found your droid then? Mission successful…?" It was only then that Tali fully took in his flight suit. She barely held in a snort, eyebrows raised. "Oh my god, and you weren't kidding about the orange!"

Grinning, she took half a step back to give him a once-over, their hands slipping apart. Poe held his arms out with a flourish, smirking unashamedly. "Like a glorious sunset."

Tali shook her head gently, still smiling. "Very… highly visible. Ha, sorry… Anyway." She brought her eyes back to his face expectantly.

Poe ran a hand through his disheveled hair as a string of rapid beeps sounded from behind him. The source was a spherical white and orange astromech droid that rapidly rolled into the room, stopping short right before it crashed into Poe's leg. He grinned down at it. "Hey, speak of the devil. Yeah, the one and only BB-8's back… that's one mission completed anyway."

Tali eyed BB-8 curiously. It (… _he?_ ) was probably the newest astromech model she'd ever seen. _Sorta… cute. With the round body._ She felt her lips quirk up. Whatever generation of Binary droidspeak the little guy was using, it was newer than the code used by vaporators and most other machinery she was familiar with on Jakku. But she caught enough to understand that he was pretty miffed at Poe, who held his hands up in supplication.

"…Yeah, I'm sorry, buddy, I know…" the spherical droid's indignant bleeping gradually quieted. "…But hey, this is Tali, the one who helped me off Jakku, so be nice, yeah? …And of course I'm glad you're back, yeesh, I wasn't _leaving._ "

Apparently mollified, the droid rolled towards Tali, shiny photoreceptor tilting up to inspect her face. _Okay yeah it's weirdly cute._ A greeting in the form of a string of whistling beeps informed her that BB-8 thanked her and… was expecting her to be bigger? _Did I understand that right?_ Tali couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Hey now, I could say the same to you, BB-8. And nice to meet you, too. I'm glad your mission was successful."

Apparently satisfied, the droid rolled back towards Poe, who was smiling softly at their interaction. BB-8 bumped lightly into his calf with a quiet bleep. _Thing's like a damn dog._

A tensing of Poe's shoulders was barely perceivable as his amused smile faded into a grim line. "But anyway the Starkiller, the First Order superweapon, is another matter. Their sights are more than likely set on us, so right now it's recon time before we make a plan to disable it."

 _Oh shit._ From what Tali understood from the medical personnel gossip she'd been privy to, the First Order had some kind of phantom energy cannon capable of destroying entire planets. Multiple planets. The magnitude of destruction was barely comprehensible…but she did now realize that the assault on Jakku could have been much, much worse. And that superweapon was going to be pointed towards D'Qar? _Better hope the Resistance figures out a way to stop it. Or my budding career as old junk fixer-upper extraordinaire will be ending real soon…_ "Yikes." She swallowed convulsively.

Suddenly clearing his throat, Poe seemed to remember that they were in the middle of the medical bay. Glancing around the room a bit uncomfortably, he gave the infatuated Nia a tight smile before his stormy eyes found Tali's again. "Um, have you eaten?"

She leveled a blank stare at him, one eyebrow raising. _We're potentially getting blown up. Annihilated. And you're hungry?_

Poe shifted minutely, holding her gaze. His expression might appear blithe, but Tali thought she could make out a kind of pleading rawness lurking in the depths of his eyes. "…I mean, I know I'm starving. Do you want to maybe take a break here and head to the canteen, grab a protein bar?" _…With you?_ Poe gestured towards the medical droid, which had blinked into reconfiguration mode after Tali had plugged the final wire back in. BB-8 turned towards the bigger droid curiously. "Looks like this guy's alright now." _So it is. Nice! …Er, I had total confidence._

Tali glanced at Nia, whose wistful attention was still centered on Poe, and shrugged _._ "Um, sure. The droid should be all set." She replaced the tools in her hand on their tray, and Poe sidled up to her, inspecting them.

"Some light welding? Nice." His voice was light. "Glad we're putting your skills to work."

"Turns out I'm somewhat of an expert on decades-old tech," Tali intoned dryly as she finished straightening the work station. Poe made a hesitant motion by her side, and for a moment Tali thought he might be about to reach for her hand again. But he only ghosted a hand at her back for a moment, steering her towards the exit with a final smile at the loitering medical personnel. BB-8 followed at their heels with a suspicious whistle.

Tali gave Poe a critical sideways look in the hallway, and he brushed his hair off his forehead restlessly, one side of his mouth quirking up. "Nice lady, Nia, but goddamn I was getting uncomfortable under that stare," he muttered.

Tali snorted. "As if less people will look at you in the busy hallway?" She couldn't help but retort. _And they're not staring because of the suit._

BB-8 gave an amused beep and Poe tossed both of them a withering look. "They don't look at me like _that_." Then his face broke into an easy smile, and he brushed his shoulder against hers. "Anyway, I wanted to hang out with you." _Really?_ "Nice job on the FX unit by the way. Who knew familiarity with outdated equipment would be a marketable skill?" He teased lightly.

She couldn't help her answering smirk. "They don't make 'em like they used to…"

"…Thank goodness," the two of them completed in unison, Poe chuckling.

They turned a corner towards the spare cafeteria, Tali following as Poe led the way through mostly-empty tables, vacated in the mid-afternoon lull. A few passing Resistance members gave them curious glances. As he grabbed a protein bar from a tray, Poe's expression grew more somber. He gestured towards a table in the corner, waiting for Tali to claim a seat before he dropped himself into the chair next to her with a sigh, stretching his legs out in front of him. BB-8 rocked absently to and fro by his side.

Tali searched Poe's pensive face, the inwardly focused expression seeming out of character. He flipped the packaged ration bar between his fingers, and she surveyed the shadowed circles under his eyes. "You okay?"

Blinking at her words, Poe brought his heavy-lidded gaze to her face. "Yeah. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "…fuck, I'm being weird," he muttered under his breath, barely audibly, before glancing at BB-8. "Hey, buddy, you want to go check on the plans with General Organa?" The droid bleeped at him suspiciously, but Poe gave him a hard stare, raising an eyebrow in warning. After a few seconds of standoff, BB-8 rolled away slowly, loosing a string of resentful beeps. Tali watched with a curious frown.

Poe sighed, hands stilling on the protein bar. He set it on the table next to him, turning to face Tali and running a hand through his hair. "Sorry, I'm being awkward." His dark gaze held hers. "But I, ah, just wanted to talk to you before shit goes down, considering there's a… non-zero chance this attack on the First Order's gonna go tits up, fiery ball of death style. I mean, I'm pretty confident. But, still… I'm sorry that you got involved."

Tali swallowed. … _Cheerful._ _Where is this going?_ _Fuck, is he telling me I'm gonna have to leave if we don't all die? Is that sorry as in he regrets bringing me here?_ She shook her head, shifting to face Poe. _Welp, I'm not just going to back down. Gotta say something—_ "Are you kicking me out? But… your droid's cute," she blurted, desperate to change the subject. _Oi, non sequitur._ Poe looked at her blankly for a split second, before barking a short laugh, eyes crinkling in a mixture of confusion and amusement. _…You're cute._

"…What?" He sputtered, crooked grin lingering. "I mean, yeah he is I guess… thank you? But uh, no, no… what?" He ended in a mutter, shaking his head at her, before his expression gradually sobered. "I just mean, I'm sorry. I feel like I got you involved in this mess. And you of all people really don't deserve to die in a ball of fire." He shifted towards her, their knees brushing together. "I just hope you don't regret helping me, or coming here." One corner of Poe's mouth rose in a warped smile. "…Or I hope that you'll live to regret it later, at least."

His dark eyes were wistful, almost brooding as he studied her wide-eyed face. "…Man, sometimes I wish there wasn't a war going on," he murmured lowly. Leaning forward, he carefully reached up to brush a lock of her hair, mussed from laying on the floor to fix the medical droid, back behind her ear.

Tali swallowed convulsively at the gentle contact, heat creeping to her face when his gaze dropped to her working throat. "…O-okay, so you're not kicking me out or anything?"

Poe's eyes snapped back up as he shot her an incredulous look, brows drawn. "Hell no! …I mean, too late now, anyway. But definitely no. I like you here." _Oh?_ Tali's heart fluttered in her chest. "…I just, sort of feel guilty about it." That crooked half-smile briefly twitched to life on his lips again.

She felt an answering smile spread on her face. "…Are you forgetting that I was the one who talked you into bringing me back here? Pleaded, practically? And I don't regret it." He raised a wry eyebrow at her, and she continued, "regardless of possible fiery death. I mean, even that might be better than living out the rest of my days chasing loser pirates on Jakku."

Poe's lips twitched. "Fair enough, that desert hellhole is fuckin' dismal…"

Tali swatted at his arm with a mock growl. _That's my hellhole, dickwad._ But Poe caught her hand, smirking, and lowered it towards their knees. _He's not letting go._ "Hey, now… Anyway, what I was trying lamely to say was that I like you, I'm glad you're here, and I'm going to go blow some First Order shit up so I can come back and maybe we could, like, actually hang out or something? Without the threat of imminent death, raiders or quicksand? …Um, that is, if you wanted to?"

 _What?_ The absent caress of his calloused fingers on the inside of her wrist was severely limiting Tali's cognitive capacity, but had Poe just… asked her on a date? …Probably not, right? _But his eyes are doing something seriously like smoldering right now—_?

She opened her mouth to reply, but a shrill buzzing tore through the still air of the nearly-empty canteen. Poe gave a start, then grabbed the communicator from his belt, stormy eyes still on Tali's face.

A voice rapidly crackled through the comlink. Tali bit the inside of her lip. _Aaand, boom, whatever the fuck moment that was: slaughtered._ Poe's voice was hard. "…Affirmative. I'm on my way."

With a look that was somehow both heated and apologetic, Poe clicked the device off and replaced it on his belt. He stood swiftly, drawing Tali to her feet alongside him, warm hand still clasped around hers.

"Duty calls. Snap's on his way back... time to formulate a plan of attack that can take down a planet. No biggie," Poe informed her dryly. His eyes briefly dropped to the chapped lip she was biting, and Tali fought the blush that threatened. _Fuck, reeeally gotta learn to control my face better._ "…Guess you've got time to think it over," Poe continued lowly, lips quirking. _Okay but did you mean, like, a date? Because: thought it over, the answer is yes, my God look at you—_

"…Now c'mon, let's go watch a bunch of high-ranking officers argue around a hologram," he continued with forced brightness.

As he turned to leave, Poe tugged her after him. "…Wait wait hold on, will they even let me in the conference room?" Tali asked, somewhat breathless as he started to drag her along. Her heart was racing. _Holy shit this weapon is major… please don't get blown up._

Poe tossed her a scoffing look over his shoulder. "Please. Of course they will—you're with me," he replied, with a self-assuredness that bordered on but didn't quite reach arrogance. He strode through the hall, completely heedless of any stares from passersby, while Tali hurried alongside him, avoiding their eyes and wishing again for her face scarves. Her hand was still clasped firmly within his, and the heat of his fingers seemed to be spreading up her arm to settle warmly in her tightening chest. She gave a lingering sidelong glance at Poe's strong profile.

… _Am I?_


	15. Chapter 15

"…Okay. How do we blow it up?"

Poe stared at Han Solo, taking in his question and the inherent suggestion. "…There's always a way to do that," the General-turned-smuggler-turned-General gruffly continued.

Blinking, Poe considered a myriad of logistics in the crowd of strategists' ensuing silence. _…Huh. Actually wait…maybe?_ He felt more than saw Tali's posture straighten minutely where she stood next to and slightly behind him, perking up at Solo's words. With the intelligence from Wexley's reconnaissance run quickly revealing just how big and complicated of a problem Starkiller Base was ( _thing drains a whole fucking star?!_ ), and the confirmation that D'Qar was in fact the First Order's next target… _fuck, we need a plan. Any plan.  
_  
"Han's right," came General Organa's strong voice, rallying. Even Han himself looked a bit surprised at her words. Poe's brow furrowed as lead strategist Admiral Statura haltingly posited the existence of a thermal oscillator at the base from where he stood on the other side of the map table.

Finn confirmed Statura's thoughts, moving around the glowing hologram of Starkiller Base towards the depiction of the black hexagonal structure in question. _Thermal oscillator, huh?_ Poe eyed its holographic image as the discussion continued. _Turns out blowing shit up is in fact the answer_ …? He fought the urge to grin as he assured the assembled group, "we'll go in there and we'll hit that oscillator with everything we got."

The aging Admiral Ackbar was unconvinced, pointing out the Order's impenetrable defensive shields, but Han Solo brushed his concern aside with the assertion that they could disable the shields with Finn's insider knowledge.

"…I can disable the shields. But I have to _be there_ , on the planet—" Finn continued, before being cut off by Solo's pledge to get him there.

Poe eyed Finn… what was that weird note in his voice? Well, in any case… _a plan's a plan._ _I trust the guy_. He didn't have much choice at this point. Poe corralled his thoughts, looking around the room.

"So we disable the shields, take out the oscillator, and we blow up their big gun. Alright. Let's go!" Poe announced. _Too easy._ … _Hopefully._

He turned as the assembled Resistance members began to disburse, meeting Tali's eyes. Her throat worked nervously, but the corners of her mouth curved in a tentative smile. His own lips quirked in response, and also because Tali's hair was still in slight disarray from her encounter with the medical room floor during her earlier repair work. Which, alright, provided a convenient excuse for him to touch her as he brushed a stray lock back behind her ear, holding her gaze. _What's a nice… well, sort of nice… girl like you doing in a war like this?_

He could definitely see something like worry in the depths of her hazel eyes, but Tali's voice was deceptively light. "So, time to destroy the First Order then?" She turned towards the doorway, breaking their eye contact.

Poe bumped his shoulder against hers gently as they exited the conference room, squinting at the bright fluorescent lights. BB-8 followed on his heels, beeping pensively. "Gonna take out their shiniest toy, at least."

He paused in front of the doors leading out to the hangars, the brown and beige uniforms of hurrying crew members and mechanics visible on the tarmac, interspersed with the striking orange jumpsuits of his fellow pilots.

"Try not to get blown up, yeah?" The near-imperceptible tremor in Tali's voice belied the casualness of her words.

Poe couldn't help his crooked grin as he watched her angle her body away, inching back down the hallway. _Not one for heartfelt goodbyes, eh?_ "Only one thing getting blown up today," he countered. _Or however many it takes to destroy Starkiller Base, I suppose._ BB-8 gave a proud string of whistling bleeps in agreement.

Tali threw a tight smile in his direction. "I'm gonna go try to make myself useful in the medical bay or something, then..."

Poe nodded, considering her. _If this mission fails, we'll be too dead to need it_. With one arm poised on the door, he reached for her hand with the other, snagging it gently. He ducked his head, holding her gaze. "See you later, Tali." He withdrew his hand slowly, fingers brushing her thin wrist in a sort of understated caress.

As he pushed through the door and exited into the organized chaos of soldiers preparing for battle, Poe thought he might have heard Tali murmur a "good luck," voice an oddly vulnerable near-whisper. A warm feeling fluttered through his chest. He flew with the best pilots around, and he trusted them with his life, but against this weapon… well, he'd take all the luck he could get.

BB-8 was pulled into his X-wing as Poe approached it to start engine prep, the mechanic who'd completed inspection just leaving. He spotted Finn on his way to the Millennium, clapping him on the shoulder as they passed. _We got this._

Shaking himself out of his thoughts as he climbed into his fighter, Poe let out a breath. _Time to do what I do best._

...

Poe flew in formation with his squadron, waiting for authorization to attack. _C'mon Solo…Finn…kill those shields. We've got like fifteen minutes to blow this thing._ Then a voice crackled through his comlink.

 _"Black Leader, go to sub-lights. On your call."_

Poe grit his teeth, heartbeat quickening. "Roger, base—red squad, blue squad, take my lead."

Dropping out of lightspeed with a blast and a rush of adrenaline, Poe headed through Starkiller Base's atmosphere towards the unmistakable hexagonal oscillator, leading an attack formation of jets. _With any luck, they won't be expecting us…_ "Almost in range! Hit the target dead center, as many runs as we can get!" He let out a whoop, swooping down to lead the squadron in a dive bomb. "Let's light it up!"

For a brief, triumphant moment, he thought they might have broken through. But though the squadron hit the oscillator dead center ( _hell yeah, nice shooting team,_ ) it was quickly apparent that the structure hadn't sustained any damage. Poe's mouth tightened as his fellow pilots deduced as much, before reassuring them, "…yeah, we gotta keep hitting it—another bombing run!" He pulled up to swoop back around, eyeing the sky critically. "Remember, when that sun is gone, that weapon will be ready to fire! But as long as there's light, we got a chance…"

At BB-8's alarmed beeping, Poe glanced towards the horizon. Why yes, that was… a shit ton of TIE fighters. _…Aw, not happy to see us?_ He led the squadrons of X-wings around for another round of attacks. _Feeling's mutual, motherfuckers. Time for a good, old-fashioned dogfight._

Unable to make another bombing run with all the enemy company, Poe led the X-wing pilots towards the Order fighters, the ships roaring past each other. One TIE fighter came a little too close for comfort, and Poe loosed a vicious curse.

 _"Furrillo's been hit!"_ came over his comlink and his string of curses became more foul—one of his own, destroyed by a missile attack. Poe grit his teeth, fiercely blasting at enemy ships and ground troops as he dodged their hails of blaster fire.

Within minutes, another X-wing was shot down, exploding into flames as it crashed… then another was taken out. He was too lost in the haze of battle to really register the losses, but Poe knew he'd be mourning a lot of comrades when this was all over… _if we make it out_. He didn't think the situation was hopeless quite yet, and Poe wasn't one to give up. But it was obvious that their troops were badly outnumbered, and the oscillator had heavier shielding than anticipated.

He shoved his doubts back, focusing on staying alive and dealing as much damage as possible as he wheeled around enemy fighters, trying to save energy blasts for another assault on the oscillator. _But it's getting darker_.

The light drained from the sky, the horrific swirling column of star energy growing thinner as the superweapon neared capacity. Poe's brow furrowed, his X-wing screaming past TIE fighters. They couldn't let the First Order win this. Too many innocent people would die—the whole Ileenium system burned into nothing. Just about everyone he cared about was still on the Resistance base, relying on his team to prevent their imminent destruction. Relying on _him._ Plus, Finn was still on the ground somewhere.

Swerving past enemy ships, Poe downed several, eyes on the darkening sky. _Crunch time._ But as he swooped upwards, locked in a vicious dogfight his squadrons seemed doom to lose as more and more of his fellow pilots were shot down, a voice crackled through his comlink with unexpected good news.

" _Black Leader, there's a brand new hole in that oscillator. Looks like our friends got in!"_

Hope flared to life in Poe's chest. _Yes! Finn!_ He banked towards the containment center. "Red Four—Red Six—cover us!" At his team's affirmations, he continued, "Everybody else, hit the target hard! Give it everything you got!" He bared his teeth, piloting his fighter down into a trench leading towards the structure along with a few other members of his squadron, but enemy troops relentlessly followed. Poe cursed under his breath. "I need some help here!"

Moments later, another X-wing was blasted to pieces, and Poe's hands clenched on the throttle. _Fucking hell—_ he made up his mind, spying the hole blasted into the oscillator. "All teams—I'm going in. Pull up and cover me."

The pilots behind him peeled off as Poe adjusted the wings on his ship, darting into the breach with a TIE fighter still in hot pursuit. He didn't consider how much time they had left before the weapon's firing, focusing only on not bashing his wings off in the tunnel. As he weaved through the breach, his pursuer hit the edge of the gap, the enemy fighter exploding in a shower of sparks.

A perverse, fierce pride rose in his chest as he flew through the structure. _There's a reason I'm the best._ Entering the oscillator's interior, Poe circled tightly, heavily firing torpedoes, before swooping back out, rising from the structure with a whoop and joining the rest of his squadron to make a final bombing pass at the oscillator's exterior.

There was a shaking before the containment center collapsed entirely, the chain reaction he'd started inside spreading across the snowy planet. Poe barked a laugh in vicious exultation. It was terrible and awe-inspiring, to see the cratering collapse of an entire planet up close like this… but he wasn't thinking about it at the moment, as the order from General Organa to immediately retreat came in.

Poe clenched his jaw, swooping higher into the atmosphere to search the crumpling planet for the Millennium ground assault team. He was thinking about his friends, and about how he wasn't going to leave Finn… even if it meant ignoring the General's direct order. _Not after all this._

He was worriedly scanning the forest, now scarred with spreading chasms, when the Falcon suddenly emerged, blasting through trees. Poe grinned— _made it out after all_.

"All teams! I got eyes on them," he announced triumphantly, giving the signal for the squadrons to follow him out. _Just in time._ As they roared through the outer atmosphere the former ice planet collapsed completely, its contained sunlight bursting forth in an immense ball of fire. _Rebirth of a sun_...

Letting out a tense breath as the X-wings reached the coldness of space, Poe prepared to shift into hyperdrive. "Our job's done here. Let's go home!" Home to the people he cared about.

...

Back at base on D'Qar ( _lovely planet, really—glad it didn't disappear into ash_ ), Poe climbed out of his fighter, parking the jet with far less care than usual as he scrambled towards the landing Millennium Falcon. There was a crowd assembled, and he saw the General there, looking extremely grim. Poe had learned of Han Solo's fate through a solemn, static-filled comlink announcement… the whole galaxy seemed dimmer for the loss. His chest felt tight.

He watched as Chewbacca emerged from the Falcon, carrying Finn's… _oh shit_ , _hopefully just unconscious…_ limp body down the ramp, where medics waited to usher them inside. The sinking in Poe's gut eased somewhat when he heard one of the medics say there was a heartbeat, but goddamn that back injury didn't look good… shaking himself, he prepared to unthinkingly follow them, but then stopped abruptly.

The face he wanted to see. Poe had assumed she wouldn't be here to greet him, too busy off endearing herself to some overworked, underappreciated group of people. But Tali was out here on the tarmac, standing amongst the group of medics, stationary while they scurried around her after Finn and Chewbacca. Her eyes, unflinchingly meeting his own, seemed fiery in her pale face ( _or am I projecting?_ ), and Poe was drawn forward like the opposite pole of a magnet.

He'd just left, really… and the violence, the brutal dogfight on Starkiller Base, had lasted only minutes. But it had felt like a hell of a lot longer than that. And a lot of people had died, his friends and one of his heroes, and far more had _almost_ died… and maybe he just wanted a hug.

So Poe didn't question it, but just submitted to his overwhelming impulse to enfold the small woman in his arms… tightly enough that it might have hurt (but he was pretty sure that the small noise she made was out of surprise, not pain)… tightly enough to mean something.


	16. Chapter 16

The fierce constriction in Tali's chest was partly due to Poe's sudden crushing embrace, but the choking emotions coursing through her system definitely shared some blame as well. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat, her face held against the shoulder of his flight suit by the warm hand he'd buried in her hair. This close, she could smell Poe's characteristic cinnamon-like scent even underneath the engine oil. Eyes closing as she heaved a deep breath, Tali wanted to simply sink into it. Into him. She hadn't expected the abrupt physical contact to be so… comforting. _Well, hi. Okay, good at hugs, check. …Holy shit I'm glad you're back._

Poe rocked her on her feet slightly with an impossibly tighter squeeze. "Hey, what'd I tell ya. Boom. Miss me?" He murmured the words into her hair, voice rough. Tali couldn't help the small smile that formed on her lips.

"Never had a doubt. And I admit, it's good to see you back in one piece." _But fuck I was irritated for a minute there when you blatantly ignored the General's order to get the hell out, flyboy._ It was only when she pulled her head back from Poe's chest a few inches to search his dark eyes that Tali realized she'd also thrown her arms around his solid form. Her hands were clutching the back of his flightsuit. Clearing her throat, she loosened her grip.

Eyes unreadable, Poe slid his arm from around her waist in a deliberate, unhurried motion, simultaneously releasing his other hand from her hair and drawing both up to gently palm the sides of her face. Tali suppressed the shudder that rose through her at the oddly sweet intimacy of the gesture. It was an uncanny ability he had, to make her feel so comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

A grin slowly broke across Poe's face as he continued to hold her gaze, searching her expression. "You _did_ miss me," he muttered under his breath, a bit triumphant. Fighting the urge to avert her eyes, Tali felt a blush rising to her cheeks. _So I did. Your face has to be this close to my face to know that?_ She felt strangely vulnerable beneath his heated gaze, face held captive by his calloused fingers. She bit the inside of her lip anxiously, and his eyes briefly dropped to her mouth. Her flush deepened. _God dammit, stop looking at me like that. …Or maybe don't?_

"…Good to see you too," Poe continued, grin settling into a smirk before he withdrew his hands from where they cradled her jaw, letting one trail to grasp her hand and tug her along with him as he turned towards the base. His eyes left her face to follow the path the hurrying medics had taken moments before, expression quickly growing troubled, "…unfortunately, not so good to see that my man Finn got hit pretty bad." He ran an anxious hand through his disheveled hair.

 _That injured guy was his friend, then?_ The unconscious man was the same one Poe had briefly pointed out in the conference room earlier, she remembered, able to think successfully again now that he wasn't so disconcertingly close. Tali's brow furrowed as she let Poe lead her back in the direction of the medical bay. _Injury doesn't look great._ Good thing that medical droid was fixed…

Considering her thus far very limited contributions to the Resistance cause, Tali thought again about what she could do here, with these people. Maybe with the most imminent threat to D'Qar destroyed, combat training would start up again? She recognized that she wouldn't be the strongest soldier, but her urge to personally dish some pain to the First Order hadn't exactly diminished with recent events.

Glancing back towards the stoic General Organa, Tali noticed the younger woman with her for the first time. …She noticed the not-inconsiderable crowd that surrounded them for the first time, too. _Well, shit_. Poe's presence had a unique way of making everyone else seem irrelevant. _Damn commander commands the entirety of my attention, at least._ Not that Tali was going to dwell on the implications of that in too much detail right at this second.

Steadily ignoring the crowd, a few of whom had eyes on her, Tali noted how the younger woman's bearing and style of desert clothing looked… oddly familiar, before turning her attention back to Poe and to where she was walking.

"Shit, I'm so sorry about your friend…" Tali intoned lowly, studying his tense profile, "but, um, who's the girl with General Organa?" Poe shot her a quizzical, distracted look.

"The Jakku native? Teamed up with Finn to escape the First Order I guess, friend of his," his brow furrowed. "Funny how we both got help off that junkyard rock from capable women… what, you know her?" Frowning, Tali craned her neck around for another look before they entered the building.

"…I'm not sure," she replied. _It's possible._ She'd met a lot of desert people even during her relatively short stint performing militia duties.

Concerns over the mystery Jakku girl fled Tali's mind as she made her way with Poe into the medical bay. He gave her hand a brief squeeze before finally releasing it and moving to question a doctor. Tali's lips twisted at the affectionate gesture. She had a feeling he sought physical contact when distressed. _Must've had doting parents…_

Not considering it her place to ask about a man she hadn't even properly met, Tali hung back by the door, watching the medics she'd come to know a little bit scurry around. She found her eyes focusing instead on Poe's drawn face. He looked tired—the dark circles under his eyes obvious enough evidence of that. Not for the first time, Tali wondered when he'd last slept a full night. _Hopefully successfully blowing up the First Order's big gun earns you a break, Dameron._ Unfortunately, the instrumental mission would doubtless also earn the Resistance the ire and retaliation of the Order. Her lips thinned at the thought. _Not sure if anyone's getting a break any time soon. This is war. This is what I signed up for._

After eyeing the medical technology critically for a few moments ( _anything else fuck up while I was gone?)_ , Tali continued her idle examination of Poe's unruly hair and the lingering marks on his face from the Jakku injuries with a sigh. Even worried, tired, and battered, _not to mention sporting head-to-toe neon orange_ , the man cut a dashing figure... As if on cue, he turned his stormy eyes to hers and returned with slow steps, expression grim.

"Well, he's stable. Transferred to an ICU pod. Now we just hope he wakes up with full use of all limbs, I guess." Poe's mouth twisted, and Tali felt her heart break a little at the subtle pain in his voice. She was learning that he was pretty solid at controlling his emotions, and might hide them with humor, but it was obvious that the man cared a lot about the people he worked with. "I, ah, should probably debrief with the General anyway," he continued, running a tired hand through his hair. "We lost… a lot of people. And Solo... damn. I'm not sure if she'd want to see anyone right now, actually. But I want to take a closer look at the Starkiller Base plans or something at least. Plan our next move." Poe's shadowed eyes searched hers. "Sorry, not like you have to hang around with me. …But I definitely wouldn't mind if you did."

Before Tali could reply, the bay doors swung open and a thin figure nearly collided with her. As Tali turned, she realized it was the girl from Jakku, who shot an apologetic glance her way. Then took a second look, hesitating. Poe raised his eyebrows at her in question.

The taller girl searched Tali's face. "Er, sorry. I was told Finn… my friend… would be here?"

Tali gave her an apologetic smile, before glancing at Poe. "He's still unconscious, in intensive care. I'm not sure if they're letting anyone in the room yet, unfortunately."

Poe shook his head ruefully. "Sorry." The girl glanced between them in disappointment for a moment. Poe stepped closer, holding out a hand. "I'm Poe Dameron, by the way. Any friend of Finn's is a friend of mine—man saved my life."

She accepted his handshake with a tight smile. "I'm Rey. Nice to meet you… Finn mentioned you, actually… but, well, we thought you were dead. Your droid's very loyal."

Poe's lips quirked. "That he is… speaking of which, I should probably find him…" he trailed off, glancing towards the hallway distractedly. "Welcome to the Resistance, Rey."

Tali gave the taller girl a hesitant smile, extending her own hand. "Sounds like maybe we should leave the medics in peace… Anyway, I'm Taliya Zev, but please just call me Tali. I'm from Jakku as well."

Rey clasped her hand before the three of them headed out into the hall towards the conference room, her smile becoming slightly more real, although her eyes remained stark. "I think I know who you are, actually… Militia Officer, right?" Tali nodded slowly, taken slightly aback. _Shit, should I recognize this girl?_ "...Could never see your face under the scarves, of course, but I couldn't forget you."

Poe glanced back at the two women, raising a brow in interest. Tali smiled but met Rey's eyes with confusion as they walked side by side. "Oh? I'm sorry, ah…"

Rey cut off her apology, shaking her head, "oh no, I wouldn't expect you to remember me particularly…" the taller girl's expression grew somewhat uncomfortable, "it's just. I'm a scavenger. You were one of the only ones at the Outpost who never disrespected us." _Oh._ It was Tali's turn to be a bit uncomfortable. She glanced at Rey's clothing, her gritty and capable demeanor. _Of course_. She must have seen Rey around the Outpost… Tali felt slightly guilty that as much as her father had taught her that everyone deserves equal respect and attention, she apparently hadn't paid a hell of a lot of attention to the scavengers she was making an impression on.

"…And you never took any shit from Unkar, either," Rey continued fiercely, making Tali grin despite herself. Poe barked a laugh, hanging back to glance at Tali with a smile that was almost proud. _Right on—fuck that guy! Nothing brings people together like mutual hatred._ "…You couldn't be bought. We liked you for that. You and your father, and Zuvio." _Father._ Tali's smile started to fade, and she stared ahead as Rey trailed off, sensing the change.

Tali swallowed the rising lump in her throat. There was something about this girl she liked. It wasn't just that they shared the sensibility that can only come from a junkyard planet upbringing (although Tali recognized her relative privilege… scavenging was an incredibly difficult way to eke out a living, far more so than her own), but they'd also both thrown their lots in with the Resistance, deciding to up and leave with a new friend. And Rey had even apparently escaped the First Order, whereas Tali had mostly gotten lucky… so, the woman must be a total badass. She certainly seemed like she'd been through some shit. Tali sighed. Might as well out with her own sad life story then. Who knows what Rey had been through, probably worse. "My father… is the reason I'm here, actually. The First Order attacked a village while we were there for relief work, and… he didn't make it out. I joined the Resistance because I wanted revenge, really." Rey was silent. "…So when I found Poe stumbling around the desert after he and Finn crashed, I talked him into bringing me back," Tali explained. Poe paused in his walking to bump his shoulder against hers affectionately, a silent _and I regret nothing_.

Rey met Tali's eyes solemnly. "I'm sorry about your father. He seemed like a good man." _He was the best._ Tali only nodded with a pained attempt at a smile in reply. She didn't quite trust herself to speak. "The First Order is horrific," Rey continued, "but without their ultimate weapon, and especially if Luke Skywalker is found…" she trailed off wistfully. Tali glanced at her. There was a strangely deep emotion she'd attached to Luke's name. More than the Jedi hero worship that youths on Jakku who knew the legends partook in. _Hmm._

When the three of them reached the conference room, where the General stood apart from a few other Resistance officers who shuffled around quietly, Poe closed the door behind them with a click. He brushed past Tali, resting a hand on her back so briefly she thought she might have imagined it, before turning in front of a data screen and eyeing Rey critically as the former scavenger stared in mild wonderment at the banks of computers. _Oh man, his game face is on._

Poe ran a hand through his wavy hair, nodding at the surrounding personnel. The General didn't acknowledge him, staring unseeingly into the distance. _She looks so… alone._

"Alright Rey. I'm sorry, I know you've had a really rough day. So have I. We can all sleep soon. But honestly, it's better to go over things while they're fresh…" Poe cracked a slight smile. "So, in the interest of Resistance progress… learn anything fun on Starkiller Base?"

 _Ah, yes. Debriefing._


	17. Chapter 17

**Thank you for the feedback, so thrilled that people are reading my nonsense first attempt. Alas, sorry updating took fooorever—I was traveling. Thought about this thing the whole time, though. Should be back to normal speed now.**

…

"General? Excuse me, General?" The mechanical voice of the shiny protocol droid was insistent.

Tali looked up from where she sat next to Lieutenant Karana, their heads bent over the Twi'lek woman's tablet computer to investigate her schedule. The genial officer, now back from where she'd been stationed on a relay ship during the battle of Starkiller Base, was apparently interested in testing Tali's combat training personally. Tali assumed that entailed sparring with the tall grey-skinned lady—something that she was both looking forward to and nervous about.

But all considerations of weapons competency were forgotten when the gaggle of droids burst into the conference room and headed straight for General Organa, who turned expectantly.

"—R2-D2 may contain some much needed good news!" The very proper anthropomorphic droid continued. Tali glanced at the cylindrical astromech unit in question as the scattered Resistance personnel populating the room all dropped their current tasks to listen, conversations trailing off. Next to her, Karana gaped at the blue and white robot like she'd seen a ghost. Tali eyed the Twi'lek quizzically. _The hell?_ … _Never have I seen a group of people put so much stock in their droids..._

Across the room, the General's interest was immediate. "Tell me."

In response, the older-model astromech ( _R2-D2? Was that it?_ ) projected a starry hologram of a navigational map into the center of the room, a conspicuous blank spot along one side of the image. Tali's brows furrowed as she scanned the route lines. _What the hell system is this?_

At a beeped request from BB-8, Poe leapt into action from his spot across the table, heading towards a bank of computers at a near-sprint. "Yeah, alright buddy, hold on—"

He removed a data stick from a base computer, and hurriedly returned to insert the device inside BB-8. The spherical droid then projected another map hologram, adjusting it down in size to fill in the missing piece of R2-D2's map perfectly. _Wait…_

Karana straightened with a gasp next to Tali, other Resistance members starting to murmur in amazement. Tali glanced over at Poe, who appeared momentarily frozen in shock as he scanned the star map intently.

"Oh, the map! It is complete!" The golden protocol droid interjected unnecessarily from the sidelines, the General raising a hand to her heart next to him. Tali's eyes were drawn to the normally stoic Organa's face as the older woman grew teary-eyed.

"…Luke…" the General breathed, and the full meaning of the map finally clicked for Tali. _Oh right, Poe's mission—holy shit so that's where Skywalker is!_ Cheers erupted around the room as everyone seemed to reach the same conclusion, Resistance personnel embracing each other excitedly.

Karana glanced at Tali briefly, eyes glowing in triumph, before springing to her feet in agitated celebration. Her tentacle headtails twitched wildly as she moved towards the map for a closer look. Another officer joined the grey-skinned Lieutenant, gesturing animatedly.

Tali glanced across the table at Rey. The former scavenger sat speechless, her eyes huge in wonder. _Girl's had quite a day._ During the debriefing earlier (Tali was still sort of surprised that no one had kicked her out, or even questioned her presence in the conference room), Rey had explained how she'd manipulated the Force to escape the First Order and wielded Luke Skywalker's lightsaber against one of their leaders. General Organa, though she listened resignedly and intently, hadn't exactly seemed surprised by any of it… it was almost like the two women already knew each other.

Tali studied Rey's angular face in slight awe. _Not just a scavenger… a future Jedi._ With Skywalker located, Rey now had a chance to develop her volatile Force abilities. She met Tali's eyes as a grin spread across her face, and Tali felt an answering smile tug at her lips. _Oh man. This is big._

Rey's glance abruptly shifted up from her face as warm arms encased Tali's shoulders from behind. Tali let out an awkward squeak, squeezed in the unexpected embrace. Poe, the owner of the solid arms, leaned over her to address Rey. He raised his voice above the ongoing celebratory cheers, "you ready to hunt down a Jedi Master?!" Poe rested his chin on Tali's head briefly, and she felt surrounded. She fought the embarrassing urge to sigh as he pulled away, leaving a warm hand on her shoulder.

Poe's enthusiasm was infectious, and Rey's grin widened. She looked thrilled but a bit uncertain, raising a surprised hand to her chest and shifting her eyes down to meet Tali's for a moment before looking back up at Poe, incredulous. "I'm going?"

General Organa herself answered before Poe could, stepping away from an excited officer towards Rey, with Karana on her heels. A gentle smile spread across the older woman's face. _But her eyes still look sad._ "Of course. It has to be you, Rey. The Force willed it from the moment it led you to pick up that lightsaber." The General's voice was kind. "And you'll be taking the Falcon, I think." A stark look clouded her contemplative face for a moment. "There's got to be a reason all of these elements have come back into play now, just as you appear…" she added lowly, deep in thought.

The stoic woman shook her head softly as if to clear her troubled thoughts. "Anyway." She turned her attention to R2-D2 with a slight smile, and the droid bleeped quietly, rolling towards her. "It appears, as so often happens, that much of what we were searching for was right under our noses all along…" the General lifted her eyes to glance around at the assembled personnel and raised her voice in announcement, the room quieting at her words. "I think this discovery, not to mention the successful destruction of Starkiller Base that so many gave their lives for," she looked briefly at Poe where he still stood slightly behind Tali, and his mouth tightened, "…calls for a day or two of celebration and remembrance while we prepare to contact Luke. Thank you all. This Resistance triumph is hard-won. The war is far from over, but because of your perseverance… we have a chance."

The Resistance officers stood at attention as General Organa nodded at the assembled personnel and took her leave, flanked by a few members of her protection detail. Poe watched her exit with an unreadable expression, hand tightening on Tali's shoulder ever so slightly before he seemed to catch himself, stepping back. As Tali stood, turning to face him fully and search his drawn face, Poe's mouth lifted slightly in a crooked smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

The noise level in the conference room, which had grown subdued at the General's speech, rose again as excited chatter about Luke Skywalker started back up. BB-8 rolled around the table towards Rey, beeping in greeting.

Karana approached, glancing between Tali and Poe critically, one eyebrow lifting. "Well, Commander," she addressed Poe wryly. "I guess it's time to knock a few back with the troops, then. What say you?" The statuesque Twi'lek's voice lowered as she took in Poe's half-hearted smile. "I know this was a rough mission, Dameron… but you did everything you could. And more." She retrieved her tablet from the table by Tali, giving the shorter woman a nod. "…Someday this'll be over and it'll all have been worth it. Now let's raise our glasses to our win and to those who made it possible, right?"

Poe raised a brow as he studied Karana's face. He took in a deep breath, and his dark eyes started to regain a modicum of their usual life. "Ha, well that's definitely what Solo would've wanted, Lieutenant." Turning towards the surrounding crowd, Poe raised his voice to address the room at large. "You heard the General—everybody with a noncritical job, the base is taking a break tonight. Let's toast to the Resistance and finding Luke Skywalker…c'mon, to the canteen—Corellian whiskey all around!"

Cheers erupted among the scattered Resistance members. _Interesting that even though he's really only the leader of the pilots, everybody listens…_ Tali mused, lips quirking as her eyes fell on Poe's tanned face. He looked over at her and Rey, expression growing mischievous. "You desert barbarians ever try real liquor? Or just that atrocious Knockback shit?"

Rey let out a surprised bark of laughter as Tali opened her mouth to retort, fighting a grin. _Fightin' words, Pilot… but actually, no. Not many alcohol varietals available at home, and not a lot of free time either..._ Poe continued before she had a chance to respond, "I mean, I'm sure it's… great, but let's introduce you to some high quality refreshments, eh?"

A smirking grin spread across his face as he gave a mock salute to Karana, who rolled her eyes in amusement, "welcome to the Resistance, ladies—we know how to party." Poe shared a conspiratorial look with BB-8, who bleeped his emphatic agreement, rolling closer. "That's right, my buddy—work hard, play hard." Poe nudged the spherical droid affectionately with his knee.

Karana shook her head in mock exasperation, eyeing the two Jakku natives. "Too bad it's all work and no play 99% of the time." She turned to Rey. "Alright, let's see if the Jedi can mind trick those hash slingers into making us some food, huh?" She headed towards the exit, Rey tossing an amused glance at Tali before following.

Poe's lips quirked as he eyed Tali, looking her up and down. "Maybe just lum ale for you, actually, smalls…"

Tali raised an eyebrow in mock outrage. "Excuse you, Dameron—I can hold my own. Which one of us grew up getting shit-faced at Ergel's with space pirates?" _Okay, that might be sort of a lie. But I've been there to partake in Knockback Nectar a few times._

"Uh-huh." From the way he was smiling, nonchalant, like he was humoring her, Tali figured that Poe might not quite buy that. _Whatever._ She couldn't help but appreciate how the expression lit his darkly handsome face, anyway.

Tali wasn't usually one for crowds, but if it meant that she got to hang out with her favorite pilot, she'd go to the weird Resistance party. And maybe with a few drinks in him, Poe would explain more about the whole "I-like-you-let's-hang-out" thing he said earlier…? Tali bit her lip at the thought, and Poe's heavy-lidded eyes dropped to her mouth, his throat working.

His amused expression shifted towards something more heated, before he cleared his throat, raising a hand to run through his inky hair. "Ah, not that my goal is to get you drunk. Nothing creepy. Uh, I'm not being weird, right?" His voice awkwardly trailed off into a mumble.

Tali felt the corners of her mouth lift. _You're… weirdly cute_. "No… I'd like to hang out with you, Poe. Without the threat of imminent death."

Apparently recognizing his own words from earlier, the uncertainty faded from Poe's expression and a slow grin spread across his face. Taking a step towards her, he reached out a hand to brush a stray lock of hair behind Tali's ear, resting it along the side of her neck gently. _How are you so warm?_ "I'm glad you're here." Poe looked like he was going to say something else, but—

"Oh, Taliya Zev of Jakku! I am so delighted to make your acquaintance! And of course greetings to you, Commander—" The shiny humanoid protocol droid artlessly inserted himself into the conversational space they'd created. Poe, throwing him an exasperated glance and looking around at the straggling Resistance members who still mulled about the conference room, reluctantly released Tali and lowered his hands to his flightsuit pockets, giving C-3PO a wry smile. "Hi, 3PO. Good work on finding the map. What's up? We should probably get heading to the canteen."

BB-8 bleeped a complaint at Poe and the taller droid, who shuffled exasperatedly. "Why thank you Commander. And goodness, of course you were instrumental as well, BB-8. I'm sure no one means to imply otherwise. Might I join you on your walk towards the dining facility?" The round droid grumblingly beeped his acceptance.

Tali couldn't help her smile. "Of course. Nice to formally meet you, C-3PO."

The shiny droid raised his hands in delight as Poe, shaking his head in amusement, led the way towards the exit, BB-8 on his heels. "Oh the pleasure is all mine, Officer. You see, I was so looking forward to meeting you, because I have heard of your impressive mechanical inclinations, and I was wondering if I may be so bold as to ask you a favor?"

 _This droid knows about me_? Tali eyed C-3PO quizzically, starting after Poe towards the hallway. "Uh, thanks, and sure, ask away…"

"Oh, thank you so much! Well, you may have noticed that I am currently afflicted with this regrettable red arm! My far superior proper arm is available, yet there has been no opportunity to replace it on my person. I would be ever so grateful if you might consider performing the reinstallation. You see…"

As the golden droid launched into an explanation of his arm situation, Tali tried to camouflage her snort of laughter as a cough. _My god, this droid…_

Poe turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow in amusement. _Damn, he has a nice face._ As they locked eyes and Poe slowed his pace to match hers, bumping her shoulder with his own fondly and interjecting something at C-3PO's longwinded tale, Tali felt…content. This warm man wanted to spend time with her ( _as…more than friends? Is he just really friendly? …Maybe I do need to get him drunk. Or alone. Or something…)._ And apparently she had found some sort of purpose as fixer of random mechanical things around base.

So far, near-death experiences notwithstanding, the Resistance seemed alright. Like maybe it was where she should be, maybe... it could be home. Tali just wasn't sure how much of her warm feeling was for the organization, and how much was due to the man walking at her side.


	18. Chapter 18

"Whoa whoa whoa, you can only place two cards in the neutral field without calling! And don't go trying any Jedi mind tricks about it, lady—that's another drink for you, then!"

Rey laughed, holding her hands up helplessly at pilot Temmin "Snap" Wexley's good-natured reprimand and obligingly taking a swig of her whiskey, making a face as she gulped down the brew. "I'm sorry!" The former scavenger grudgingly gathered her sabacc cards to her chest. "I just forgot the rules—unlike some people, we didn't have a lot of time to play silly games 'round the Outpost on Jakku…"

Tali (who had been playing almost as poorly as Rey) gave a "hear, hear" of agreement from across the makeshift game table, throwing a fist up in Jakku native solidarity, and Poe cracked a grin.

" _Silly_ game? I'll have you know that the Millennium Falcon you're so fond of was won in a game of sabacc…" Wexley grumbled defensively. _By the late great Han Solo… may our outlaw smuggler General rest in peace._ Poe tipped his glass skyward contemplatively. _We're bringing down the First Order for you, dammit._

As the drinks continued to flow, their card game had gotten more and more raucous… at this point, he'd completely lost track of who was winning… not that they were betting real credits or anything. _Just something to do that makes it seem like our purpose isn't solely getting sloshed…_ and to promote camaraderie and all that. It had been a long time since Poe had let himself take a night off. This evening was serving as a good reminder of how much he liked the ragtag group of people he fought with, and that the Resistance was more than just a job.

Even the normally-poised Karana had loosened up, her laughter coming louder and more frequently as the evening wore on. And she wasn't the only one. Poe met Tali's eyes where she sat on the other side of the Twi'lek woman, noting her smile and the color in her pale cheeks. _So she_ _ **can**_ _be social…with a few drinks in her._ He was not exactly feeling any pain himself. He only wished that Finn could be healthy and awake to join them… _he'll come through._ BB-8 had gotten bored hanging out watching their card game and gone to watch over him, so if there was any change in Finn's status, Poe knew that his loyal droid would alert them immediately.

Shaking off the sobering thought, Poe turned to Rey, who was sitting to his right. "So sorry about these Blue Squadron assholes…" he eyed Snap, who made a rude gesture at him from her other side, and Poe returned it with a smirk before continuing with put-on pretentiousness, "...really, Wexley, cut the poor girl some slack… she deserves our pity if anything, my god, has this feral scavenger even experienced a civilized eveni—"

Rey cut him off with a fist to the gut, Tali cheering her on, and Poe raised his arms defensively. "Ahh, the abuse! Aren't the Jedi supposed to be calm and peaceful…?!" He bit his cheek, trying to hold back his laughter, and shifted to look at Tali accusingly. "…And you're just standing by, 'Officer'?"

"We're not on Jakku, Pilot, you're on your own," Tali scoffed with a grin, holding her hands up.

Rey shot him a look of mock outrage. "Oi, and I'm sure not a Jedi yet… so am I supposed to be feral or peaceful—make up your mind!" She plunked her cards on the table dramatically. "Anyway, I've Bombed Out again, ugh, you Resistance lot accuse me of cheating but I swear you've stacked the deck somehow…" She looked suspiciously at Snap, who was chuckling beside her.

The older pilot lay his cards down. "Well, it's a negative twenty-one for me, we'll see if Poe can beat that?" He looked over and gave a hoot of laughter at Poe's obvious frown. "Oh what's this then, after all his trash talking, does our mighty Black Leader want to fold?!"

 _Ha._ Poe's lips slowly twitched up into a smirk as he laid his hand down triumphantly. _Positive twenty-three, bitches._ "You wish—pure sabacc! Drink up, everybody! Game over!" He gave a whoop of victory, throwing his fists up.

Tali threw her cards down in frustration and Snap groaned dramatically, reaching for his whiskey. "Must you beat me at everything? Honestly…" the larger man grumbled playfully.

Poe was about to reply with how Snap, in all fairness, was a better recon pilot ( _can't have my team be too jealous of my greatness…_ ) when, to his left, Karana cackled in delight. She tossed her cards down, tentacle headtails twitching jubilantly. "Not so fast! The game _is_ over but toss that glass back, Dameron! HA. Check it: zero, one of Sabres and two of Sabres. Idiot's Array trumps pure sabacc, I win!" The grey-skinned woman did a little victory dance in her seat, gleeful smile nearing the level of diabolical.

Poe raised an eyebrow, grinning at her antics. _Sheesh, didn't realize the lieutenant was so competitive…_ he threw a melodramatic hand over his forehead in mock despair. "Ah, fiiine. So you do. Nonexistent pot goes to Karana." He raised his glass of alcohol in a salute before downing the remainder, hissing out a breath at the burning sensation _._

Next to him, the Twi'lek ran a calming hand over a headtail in an unsuccessful attempt to school her expression. "…It's the principle of the thing." An errant snicker undermined her attempted composure.

Tali slapped Karana's shoulder with a congratulatory grin. _Yep, someone's definitely well on her way to getting tanked._ "I for one am just glad Poe didn't win _again_ ," she muttered conspiratorially. Rey nodded emphatically in agreement across the table, raising her glass.

Poe felt the corners of his mouth lift. "Hey, now! Don't hate the player, hate the game—jeez, who brought you here anyway…" He reached over Karana to playfully shove Tali's shoulder. "And you may have won this time, lieutenant… but you know what they say…" he shrugged innocently at the Twi'lek. "Idiot gets the Idiot's Array."

Karana rolled her eyes, rising from her seat at the table. "He's so jealous, it's embarrassing," she declared imperiously to Tali, before turning to address the entire table. "Well, unfortunately it's time for me to turn in… you fighters may have a break, but there are some of us who have to worry about boring day-to-day operations around here…" she sighed. "Have a good night, and good game all. And I'll see you tomorrow, Tali?" At the shorter woman's nod, Karana left with a final wave, weaving through tables towards the exit only slightly unsteadily.

It was probably getting a bit late, Poe supposed. The canteen had cleared out somewhat, although a few other tables of Resistance personnel continued their merrymaking. Rey moved around the table to talk lowly with Tali. The buzz of conversation and clinking glasses was… soothing. Poe could almost imagine they weren't in the middle of an intergalactic war for a moment. _Almost._ He eyed his empty glass.

Snap nudged Poe's knee with his own, jolting the younger pilot from his reverie. Poe looked up at the larger man, eyebrow raised in question. Wexley's mouth thinned. "Hey. You doing alright?"

Poe sucked in a breath, leaning back in his seat slightly and forcing a smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. How you doing?"

Snap eyed him critically, flashing a wry smile. "I'm okay. You know, for all your motivational bravado in the air, you're really a terrible liar, my man." Poe pulled a face at him. _As you've mentioned before._ "…But alright, alright. I just wanted to check." Snap hesitated, then clapped Poe's shoulder solidly. "You're a helluva pilot, Dameron. And a helluva comrade. You did it for us today."

 _But at what cost?_ Poe's mouth tightened. "Hey, _we_ did." _I would've been smoking rubble thanks to those TIE fighters if you hadn't been covering me_. He grasped the larger man's arm in return. "Great work yourself. Thank you." Poe cracked a slightly more real smile. "We can't cry all over each other now though, c'mon captain, we still gotta war to win."

Snap rolled his eyes upward, giving Poe's shoulder a light shove. "Yeah, yeah, that we do." He turned to the group of pilots at the next table, "Hey, Jessika, Nien! One more round for our fallen brothers?" _Oh hell, here we go._

The table cheered at Snap's request, the small, black-eyed Nien expressing his affirmation in his liquid-like native Sullustan tongue. Jessika Pava, another Blue Squadron pilot, gave a nod to another soldier to fetch additional booze. Poe eyed the bottles. _Is that… Flameout? Hoo boy, how do we even have that on base?_

Snap led the way over to the remainder of the squadrons. _Seven starfighter pilots. That's all we've got left._ Poe swallowed thickly, trying to force back his dark thoughts. He dutifully lifted a glass as all eyes landed on him, expecting him to make some kind of toast as their leader. And for once, Poe didn't know what to say.

He cleared his throat, eyeing each of his fellow pilots in turn. "Ah… well, damn. This… is hard, this is a bittersweet day. And we've suffered some serious, serious losses. Without their sacrifices we wouldn't be here." He swallowed. _Welp, okay let's not make this entirely a downer, this is supposed to be a celebration._ He raised his voice, "…but we've also managed to destroy the First Assholes' greatest weapon. And we have the means to find Luke Skywalker." Poe glanced back to where Rey and Tali sat at the next table, lifting his glass with a nod at the future Jedi. "…Which means, we are going to win this war. To the Resistance!"

Cheers erupted as everyone lifted their drinks in salutation, hands clapping him on the back from all sides. _Here's to ending this war so people can stop being killed for stupid fucking reasons._ He blinked back thoughts of all the innocent First Order victims— _Tuanul, the entire Hosnian system_ —with a shudder. Poe forced a smile before tossing back his glass. _Whoo, yep, Flameout, that shit burns._ The spice in the potent brew scalded his tongue and then froze down his throat.

He joined in the cheers, well wishes for each of the remaining pilots and a few soldiers growing more enthusiastic as the alcohol hit his system. He was quickly losing track of how many times his glass had been refilled. Rey and Tali had joined the group, Poe discovered upon turning around to look for them at the next table. _How confusing that was indicates that I'm a little more blitzed than anticipated. Cool._

Rey turned towards him from where she and Tali had been chatting with Jessika. _All the women conspiring together, typical_ … Poe gave her a friendly nod. The future Jedi smiled, but it looked a little forced. "I think… I'm going to go," she explained with a sigh, raising her voice over the surrounding clamor. "I know it's stupid and he probably hasn't woken up but I really want to check on Finn one more time." She smiled at Snap next to him as well, then turned to Tali. "But I had a really great time with all of you tonight, and so nice to meet you. Goodnight!" With a small wave, the tall girl vanished into the hall.

A rowdy chorus of "Goodnight, future Jedi!"'s and the like resounded throughout the crowd, making Poe smile. _Apparently the Resistance likes our new Force using champion._ His gaze fell on Tali, who was watching Rey leave with an almost wistful expression. Poe fought the urge to reach out and ruffle her hair, settling on taking a step closer. He studied her slightly flushed face. _Pretty._

Tali's dark eyebrows knit together as she looked up to meet his eyes. _Wait. …Ahh. Did I say that out loud?_

Her mouth twitched in barely suppressed amusement as the color rose in her cheeks more markedly. "Yep, you sure did. Um, thank you? Goddamn, what was in that last drink, Dameron?"

He felt a grin stretch across his face. "You don't even want to know, Officer. I think at least one of the ingredients is illegal. Technically." He leaned closer. "Wouldn't want you… to have to arrest me." _There's totally a lewd joke I could make in there somewhere…? Maybe?_

Tali snorted a laugh, hiding her face in her drink, and Poe had a sudden urge to scoop up and squeeze her. _Little fierce woman._ He cleared his head with an abrupt shake. _Shit balls to Friday, when's the last time I got hammered. I'm getting old._ At least the effects of Flameout shouldn't last very long… or was he thinking of some other concoction?

 _We'll see, I guess._ He ducked his head to hold her gaze. "Do you want to get out of here? …Not in a creepy way," he hurriedly added, "just in an, I'm tired and probably too old for this shit way." Tali rolled her eyes at him in amusement, but nodded.

Wexley made some sort of vaguely suggestive whistling noise at the exchange, and Poe whacked him unceremoniously in the back of the head. _Well I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling it—no way Snap'd pull that shit sober._ "Agh! …Pansy," the older pilot mumbled, "…er, goodnight, fearless leader. And Tali. Great to meet you." He smiled at Poe's dark warning look, waving them off.

After a few more scattered farewells, Poe led the way towards the door. Tali ran loudly into a chair on the way out ( _ha, okay, it's deeefinitely not just me feeling the alcohol)_ , and he grabbed her hand to steady her, then kept holding it because… well, he wanted to. And not like she was protesting. He stopped abruptly once they entered the hallway, struck with an idea.

"Hey, we could walk outdoors to the residence wing. It's a little more roundabout but a nicer walk, especially at night without all the patrols and heat… maybe would give us a chance to sober up."

She sucked in a quick breath and brought her other hand up to sandwich his between hers, eyes sparkling. "Yes, can we go outside! …And look at the trees?" He grinned at her excitement.

"Yeah, sure, got plenty of those. Aw, I forget you're from a desert." _Sad_. "…You could've gone out to wander around before if you wanted, you know…"

Tali shrugged, letting go of his hand and concentrating on their path towards the exit. "I… really wanted to be useful, I guess. And making sure I was available here seemed more important." She glanced up at him. …And immediately stumbled over a stair with a squeak.

"Whoa, graceful creature," Poe laughed at her, holding her up by the elbow, but he clearly wasn't doing any better, as he tripped over the very next step. Laughing too hard at himself to stay upright, he decided to just give up and staggered down to the ground, awkwardly landing on the edge of the path next to a tree and dragging Tali with him. He leaned back to flop amongst the grassy roots.

"Oh fuck, sorry, whoa, too drunk for stairs I guess?" Poe rambled through his chuckling. "Oh, and I brought you down with me. What an asshole. Look! This is our whole relationship right here," he struggled through uncontrollable low laughter, "me dragging you down into the mud. _Literally_." He was wheezing at this point. _Oh fuck I'm going to laugh my guts out. Pull yourself together, Poe. …Why is everything funnier when you're lying down?_

Tali had landed half on top of him with an "oof," then rolled to his side, shaking with laughter either at the situation or him. Poe dragged her against him in a half hug and she let him, apparently struggling to catch her breath. "That's not even true… more accurate if I talked you into dragging me into the dirt. Or… something." Her giggling slowly subsided.

He twisted his head to look at her face where he was holding her by his shoulder. She was smiling, and he raised an eyebrow in mock seriousness, gesturing with his free arm at the branches and starry sky above them. "This, uh, this good for you? …Close enough to a tree?" He reached back to brush his hand against the tree's bark and cracked a grin. "You wanna touch it?"

Tali closed her eyes and groaned a laugh, hands rising to cover her face. But then she paused and shuffled backwards, turning and climbing half over him towards the tree with a grin. "Actually, yes." She dragged herself up on her knees next to him.

"Ah hey, don't step on me, woman," Poe exclaimed with a laugh, placing a steadying hand on her hip. She ignored him.

"Is it stupid if I want to… hug this tree?" Tali asked hesitantly, reaching her arms around it, then upwards to stroke a few leaves. He watched her childlike exploration with a grin. _Is she… sniffing it?_

Poe snorted. _This girl drunk as hell._ Honestly though… "Probably equally or less stupid than the Resistance flight commander drunkenly laying in the dirt like an idiot… so… you're good."

Tali laughed and then struggled fully to her feet, bracing herself against the tree with one hand and reaching the other down to help him up. "Aw, so true. This probably isn't the side of the dashing hotshot pilot they want on the recruitment posters…"

Poe squinted up at her. "You don't think it's appealing?" He reached for her outstretched hand, recalling the times on Jakku when he'd first offered his and she'd ignored it. As he hauled himself unsteadily to his feet with the help of Tali and the tree, trusting her, it seemed like they'd come a long way.

His thoughts straggled as he stared at her face. _You're pretty in moonlight._ Her delicate features looked especially ethereal cast in the silvery glow of D'Qar's two moons.

Once successfully upright, he reached out to brush at the grass in her hair and then grasped her face gently between his hands with a soft smile. Her eyes looked huge and liquid in the semi-darkness. His gaze fell to the pale column of her throat as she swallowed. _Am I making you uncomfortable? Am I being drunk and weird? Well._

He let out a breath. _Might as well roll with it._ "You look beautiful under the stars." _And everywhere else._ He wasn't smiling anymore. "…And, yes, we're both somewhat inebriated, but I'd be saying the same thing stone sober," he continued at her unsure stare. "Really. Let me compliment you, now that we're alone without… much… risk of imminent death." He swallowed, bringing his head down to softly rest his forehead against her own.

Tali made a small humming noise and her jaw tensed minutely under his hands, like she was steeling herself. _Don't run away_. "I… don't know what you mean when you say things like that? Like, when you're not smashed… what are we doing." She spoke in a near whisper.

Poe knew that the breaths ghosting across her face probably smelled like weird, fiery spiced alcohol, and that maybe declaring one's affection was something that should be done while sober… and maybe not while wearing the sweaty shirt he'd had on under his flight suit all day and probably spilled whiskey on at some point. But. He didn't care. _Have I not been obvious enough?_ He thought he'd made it… pretty clear?

This girl was one of the few honestly no-strings-attached good people he'd come across along with being tough and capable, and, okay, so sue him, also very attractive. The two of them definitely had some sort of chemistry, and he found it hard to believe she didn't feel it. But he also really didn't want her to get freaked out by his forwardness.

 _Fuck it_. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. "I want to preface this by saying," _okay, fuck yeah go Poe, 'preface' is a kinda big word I must not be_ _ **that**_ _drunk,_ "that I might be sorta tipsy right now…but… that doesn't mean what I'm saying isn't true at every other time. All the time." _Was that weird, am I being weird?_ _…Ah shit, oh well,_ "I wanted to kiss you in the cockpit of that janky HWK-290, in the middle of the desert, with that goddamn Blarina junker watching. And I wanted to kiss you when you stepped out of my shower here, looking all cute and soft out of your desert clothes. And when I came back from Starkiller Base and saw you in the crowd on the tarmac. And so many other moments." _And it killed me every time. But I want to do it right, goddammit._

Had Tali stopped breathing? He stroked his thumbs gently over her cheekbones before continuing. "…But I didn't wanna scare you off. Or make you think that I only brought you here because of that, or something. And then there were people—even though I sure as hell wouldn't care-I didn't think you'd appreciate a kiss in front of a crowd. And… well, now would be great, but now I'm drunk. So as much as I want to kiss you here, now, under this tree that you're obsessed with…" a brief smile ghosted across his lips. "…It doesn't seem quite right either. Because I want the first time I kiss you to really. Mean something." _God. Damn. It._

He panted the last few words, their lips nearly touching, his eyes closed. Upon opening them, part of his brain dimly realized that at some point in his little speech he'd backed Tali against the tree and she'd brought her hands up to grip his arms. He moved his face away from hers slightly and stroked his hands down her face to softly rest around her neck and over her collarbones.

His mouth twisted in a crooked smile as he held her gaze. "So when I tell you I like you, want to spend time with you, get to know you better, whatever… yeah, it's like that." _Not just being friendly_. Not that he _didn't_ want to be her friend… but he also really wanted to know what her lips tasted like, how soft her pale skin was.

 _Fuck_ , these awkward feelings were making him feel fifteen years younger. Most women Poe had been with had pursued him or made it very obvious that they wanted to be pursued by the dashing star pilot ( _always interested in the Commander_ ), or else their encounters were more of the, uh, _casual,_ met-last-night-at-the-tapcafé variety. But Tali was someone he cared about and liked as a person already, even with their relatively short acquaintance… _and I think maybe, to her, it wouldn't be about the wings and bravado…_ he didn't want to fuck this up.

At her lack of immediate reaction, he loosened his grip over her shoulders, clearing his throat gracelessly. He was about to pull away when Tali drew a breath, stopping him with a tentative hand on his chest. Her face was still flushed, but she held his gaze squarely. "…So it's like that." Her words were breathless, and she bit the inside of her lip, his eyes dropping to follow the movement. "…That means something," she continued, voice barely audible.

Rising on her toes and fisting her hand in the linen of Poe's shirt where it dipped in a v over his chest, Tali pulled his lips down to meet hers.


	19. Chapter 19

**Thank you so so much for the continued feedback. No worries, I still love and am working on this, it's just that real life obligations are terrible and time-consuming.**

* * *

Tali, admittedly, tended to throw herself into things even at the most sober of times. So it was only natural that now (especially thanks to her liquid courage, courtesy of the Resistance's impressive stock of Corellian whiskey) she'd decided that she _really_ didn't share Poe's fixated obsession with waiting for some perfect first kiss moment.

In fact, after hearing his somewhat drunken-ramble-y confirmation of his romantic intentions, Tali thought he was being sort of ridiculous. As if she, relatively unremarkable desert drifter, needed to be wooed in a certain way in order for this dynamic, good-natured (and also, okay, very attractive) man to win her over? His thoughtfulness was flattering and rather…sweet, if she was being honest. But come _on_.

She tightened her grip on the neckline of his shirt, his chest solid and warm against her fist. _Life is short. Especially with the First Order around actively trying to end it. You're hot. And great. I mean, really, you've got this… er, me?... in the bag already. Ugh, come here._

When Poe's ( _surprisingly soft_ ) lips met hers, the slight roughness along his square jaw scraping against her face, the alcohol-induced fuzziness in Tali's mind began to clear. Her momentary bravado dissipated with it. _Oh my god, what?! Am I doing this?_ For an awkward, panicked moment, she froze.

But then with a helpless groan, Poe slid his hands up from her shoulders to tangle into her hair, shifting to take control like she'd flipped a switch. He gripped the back of her neck to deepen the kiss, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the mild temperature racked down Tali's spine as her lips parted under his. All coherent thoughts, doubtful and otherwise, fled her consciousness. _  
_  
This pilot was making her _feel things_. In addition to the more figurative pooling heat of desire, his tongue left a literal tingling burn against her own, an unexpected ( _but not unwelcome?_ ) lingering effect from the shots of fiery spiced liquor he'd downed earlier.

Granted, it had been awhile since she'd shared a kiss with anyone. But somewhere in her clouded mind, Tali was damn certain that she'd never felt anything like the electrifying tremor that coursed through her body as Poe tilted her head back, teeth briefly grazing her lower lip, with anyone else. The prickling rush of heat spreading through her chest and gut was creeping all the way towards her extremities. How was this man's kiss _literally making her toes curl_?

An embarrassingly helpless whimper escaped Tali's lips under his mouth's thorough, heated exploration, her knees trembling. Her grip on Poe's shirt had lost any pretense of being there to tug him down and now she clung to him more to ensure that she remained stably upright, half-leaning against the tree behind her.

At her small sound of desperation, Poe's lips quirked against hers. He smoothed his hands down her neck to her collarbones, pulling away slightly to rest his forehead lightly against her own, chest heaving. Tali met his dark eyes, watching their cloudiness— _due to desire or alcohol? Both?_ —gradually clear.

"Well. Alright. Point taken," he half-chuckled, half-whispered against her lips after a moment, releasing a pent-up breath _._ "…But ah, you stole my thunder." Tali could only smile weakly in reply, not trusting herself to speak quite yet. _You're stealing my heart_. At the sappy thought, she fought the urge to roll her eyes at herself. _Yikes, slow down, drunkie._

Tali settled on something less gag-inducing. "Is that a complaint?" She murmured in mock indignation, sliding her hand up and over his muscled shoulder to brush a lock of coal-black hair away from his forehead.

"Hardly." Poe's eyes drifted closed at her light touch, and he turned his face into her hand with a sigh. Tali felt her lips curve into a soft smile. She almost expected him to purr.

She traced a finger over his brow. Relaxed and cast in the silvery moonlight, all sooty eyelashes and angular jawline, his rugged face looked smooth. Younger. _So handsome._ Peering at the shadowy hollows under his eyes, she wondered for the umpteenth time when he'd last slept a full night. _No way commanding two Resistance squadrons is exactly a low-stress occupation_ …

But he'd earned a break tonight, at least. …A break that their courtyard interlude was cutting into, she supposed. Not that he seemed to mind the making out in lieu of sleeping. An oddly satisfied feeling rose in her chest at the thought, and she felt a blush rise to her cheeks anew. _Not even a little._

Poe opened his eyes and caught her studying his face. He cracked a grin. "What? Second thoughts already?" His tone was joking, but Tali thought there might be an element of vulnerability lurking in the depths of his hooded eyes.

She ran her fingertips lightly over his temple, careful not to apply too much pressure to the area that had been scraped up and bloody just the day before.

"Hardly." Tali repeated his own words, and her smile broadened as she lowered her hand to join the other on his chest, leaning into it to draw slightly closer to his magnetic warmth. _More like, why haven't you been kissing me like that this whole time? Goddamn._

Poe bit his lip, grin turning into more of a smirk, and gently held her uplifted face between his hands, nudging her nose with his own. "Good." He spoke against her lips, words falling between the light kisses he pressed on the corners of her mouth, her cheeks, her chin, "I'm not letting you run away from me before I've even started trying to win you over…" he continued in a borderline-arrogant murmur that was almost a growl. His self-assured smile was infectious, and with a short laugh, he suddenly shifted to envelop her in his arms.

A squeak of surprise tore from Tali's lips, his abrupt squeeze nearly pulling her off her feet. Enfolded into his broad chest, she was left breathless—but rather than being overwhelming or dominating, his hold just made her feel... warm. And soothed. She felt herself going limp, the curves of her body trying to melt into the firm planes of his of their own accord.

With a pang, she realized that it would be way too easy to get used to this kind of affection. _But is this even a normal level for him, or is he a cuddly drunk?_ Tali rationalized… maybe it would be better not to get too attached, too comfortable? In case one of them had to leave, like for war reasons? Or this didn't work out? Like turned out it was just a savior complex thing or something? The pessimistic thoughts made her breath hitch. But who was she kidding—the warmth that she found irresistible, even addictive, was a permanent aspect of his being. His obnoxiously good-humored, friendly, near-effervescent being. She swallowed. _Fuck._ There was serious potential to fall— _hard_ —for the charming pilot. She refused to entertain the possibility that a not-inconsiderable part of her already had.

"I'm not trying to run," she protested in a near-whisper, her face resting in the crook between Poe's neck and shoulder. She breathed him in, eyes drifting closed. Under the jet fuel, sweat, and whiskey he smelled, as usual, vaguely like cinnamon. She resisted the sudden urge to press her tongue to his throat. _Whoa now, gotta wait to see if I want the guy this bad when I'm not tipsy, right? …Right._ _Nooo regrets._ She could talk a big game in her head.

"Excellent," Poe exclaimed with finality, only slurring the word a little. "…Since you're totally trapped with me another night anyway. Now c'mon, I see you're dragging, and I'm beat, so as much as I wouldn't mind sleeping out here under the stars… let's head in." He hauled Tali further up into his arms, throwing her half over his shoulder and laughing at her yelped objection. "What? You're so… portable. D'you trust me?"

She squirmed in his solid hold, maneuvering her arms up to shove against his shoulder. "What?! No! Goddammit, you're drunk—you're gonna drop me," she whined, but Poe ignored her.

He gave a scoffing snicker. "Pfft, no faith. Well, now it's a _challenge_." He took a few confident, striding steps, then stumbled once over a root, and she gave a cry of protest. Poe shushed her, laughing. "Seem so stoic but you're actually sooo dramatic…" He affectionately rubbed the side of his head against her ribs. _Like a giant damn unmanageable cat._

Tali hung her head in defeat, elbows braced over his shoulder. "Oh my god, you're an obnoxious drunk," she muttered lowly, annoyed but too averse to drawing attention from the base to raise her voice.

"What's that now, my small miffed lady? I think you mean… gallant? Dashing?" He corrected, snickering.

 _Glad you amuse yourself, flyboy._ …Well alright, maybe his weird insistence on the over-the-top, unwarranted chivalry was a _little_ amusing. She sighed, glad that he couldn't see the slight smile cracking across her lips she wasn't quite sober enough to successfully subdue. _Ridiculous_.

When they stumblingly reentered the building near the residence wing lift, Poe released his grip. Tali slid down his body with an "oof," and he gripped her shoulders in a steadying hold for a moment, ducking his head to meet her eyes.

When he removed his hands to operate the control panel, she found herself unpleasantly surprised at how much colder it was away from his body. The hallway seemed less welcoming without their contact, the bleak, blue-tinged artificial lights making his normally-tan skin look pale. Tali suppressed a shiver, inching closer. Her own skin must look downright ghostly.

Poe grinned crookedly as they stepped inside the metallic lift. "Still can't believe you," he muttered lowly before they continued back into the hallway, him leading the way towards his rooms. "After all that. Thought I was being all obvious anyway. But no. Then you go and kiss _me_ , fuck my plans," he continued to grumble, shaking his head good-naturedly in wonder. He held her unapologetic gaze until Tali rolled her eyes with a small smile. That it took him two slightly-fumbling tries to key in his door code didn't escape her notice. _Hell, I really am lucky he didn't drop me. Drunk ass._

Once inside his room, Poe blocked her path to the couch, raising his eyebrows in warning. "I'll toss you on my bed again," he threatened lightly. Then his own choice of words apparently cracked him up, and he gave her a mischievous smirk. "Ha… not in a creepy way." His grin broadened as he snickered to himself, and she thought she might've heard him mutter something to the effect of "unless you're into that" under his breath.

But Tali ignored his words and frowned, studying his face. "Poe, I really think you should consider what'd be best for your current sleep deprivation…" she stumbled over the long words only _slightly_.

He waved a hand at her dismissively, turning towards the bathroom. "Yeah, yeah. A) I'll sleep when I'm dead, and B) anyway, my couch ain't bad. Now what I really need is to consider what'd be best for my current cleanliness deprivation…" he snorted at his own play on her words. _Dweeb_. Then he pulled his shirt off over his head, tossing it towards the bin in his room, and headed for the shower. Tali sighed at his bare, lean torso. _Really good-looking dweeb._

He swung the door closed with a final pointed glance and smirk in her direction, apparently having caught her ogling him. She flushed for the millionth time that evening ( _really need to get that reaction under control_ ), hastily turning towards the small pile of her soft sleeping clothes on an end table.

Tali slowly changed out of her old tunic. _Whoa, tonight._ Was this going to be awkward in the morning? Should she not have pushed the kiss? Should she ask for a different place to sleep sooner rather than later? …Did the Resistance frown on intimacy among members? _I mean, it was only a kiss_. Nothing unforgivable or serious even if they did. Right? But Poe wanted there to be maybe more to this? …Right?

She had thought that if she could get an explanation about what they were doing, what he wanted from her, everything would be clear. And now things were… a little more clear. _I mean, alright, people who just want to be friends don't put their tongues in each others' mouths. There's a fuckin clue._ But there were still so many unanswered questions.

Well, one thing was sure: Tali was going to have to add "great kisser" to the growing list of reasons she was really starting to like Poe Dameron. _Damn him._


	20. Chapter 20

Although the cool water was doing wonders for clearing his head, Poe emerged from the shower quickly. And then he realized while toweling himself off that in his waning tipsiness (not to mention elated post-kiss distraction), he'd neglected to bring a change of clothes in with him. He briefly, shamelessly, considered walking out in the nude— _Tali's reaction would no doubt be hilarious_ —before thinking better of it and tying the length of cloth around his waist with a mental shrug.

He blinked tiredly at his steam-blurred reflection for a moment, prodding gingerly at a lingering scrape on his cheek. _Probably gonna scar a bit._ The Resistance meds and serums worked wonders, but a few spots on his face and ribcage remained tender. He ran a hand through his damp, curling hair with a sigh. …Of course, the worst scars— _the ones in my fucking head—_ were below the surface.

Poe shook off the morbid thought, determined to bury the recollections of mental torture that still occasionally haunted him under brighter ones. At least tonight's events had proven that something ( _or someone_ ) was going well. He couldn't hold back the slow grin that spread across his face, stretching the scabbed-over skin of his scraped cheek. _Guess you never know how a mission'll turn out_. Sure, he'd crashed, gotten his head cracked open, and lost BB-8 for awhile on Jakku... not to mention the First Order had dealt some serious damage… but the Resistance had gained a scrappy, mechanically-inclined potential operative out of the clusterfuck. One that he _really_ liked. And who was apparently attracted to him in return. He fought a sudden urge to cheer.

Entering the common area with a spring in his step despite his exhaustion, Poe barely suppressed a snort of laughter at the sight of Tali, clad once more in the soft sleeping clothes that made him want to squeeze her small frame, bent over to drink out of the sink.

She straightened awkwardly as he approached, and quickly shut off the stream of water. He noted the way her eyes lingered on his bare torso with masculine satisfaction, his smirk growing as color rose in her cheeks. _Well hey there_.

"Dunno what you do on Jakku, but we fancy Resistance folk have cups…" Poe sidled up to the counter, laughing, to lift one off of the shelf above her head. He offered it to her with a dramatic flourish, only slightly unsteady on his feet. "For future hydration needs. If you'd like."

Tali reached for it with thanks and a mumbled excuse about not wanting to search through cupboards, avoiding his eyes. He couldn't be sure if her deep blush was due to being caught or because of his minimally-clothed proximity, which only increased his amusement.

When she grasped the glass, Poe refused to release his grip on it for a long moment, ducking his head to force her to hold his gaze. _Don't be creepy, keep it playful..._ His smirk grew as he leaned against the counter next to her. "You're fucking cute when you blush."

Tali raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again, apparently at a loss. A laugh escaped him at her irked expression, but he let go of the glass suspended between them, raising his hand to briefly run his fingers along her cheekbone. Poe gently brushed her now-unbound hair away from her face before backing away with a sigh. _Probably need some pants._

When he returned moments later, sleeping pants donned, Poe headed to grab a glass of water himself. _Or several. Gotta hydrate. How many shots did I have? ...I'm too old for this._

Tali eyed him critically over the rim of her glass. "How's the head feeling?"

 _Other than mind-fucked?_ He brushed a hand through his hair reflexively. "Probably better now than it will in the morning…" _This hangover's 'bout to be hell._

Her lips twitched into a wry smile as she held her glass out in a mock salute. "Bottoms up, tough guy."

Poe pulled a face in response, reaching a bare foot out to nudge Tali's. "Hey now, I'm tough. …But Flameout's a spicy bitch."

Tali's expression was amused, but he thought there was something guarded, and maybe unsure, lurking in her hazel eyes. Setting his now-empty glass down, he reached to take hers as well, setting it aside. Her lips parted in question as he brought his hands up to gently frame her face. "Hey. Not that anything I consumed affected how I feel. Zero regrets... even if you did nix my, admittedly sorta dumb, romantic plans." He schooled his wry smile. "But are you alright?" _I'm so serious. But if you're sobering up and thinking that kiss was a mistake…_

Her eyes drifted closed momentarily before she raised them to meet his, lips curved in a soft smile. "Are you kidding? I'm… great." She couldn't seem to find the adjective she wanted.

Poe released a pent-up breath. _Thank god._ He bent to capture her lips in a gentle kiss, and her hands crept up to rest on his bare chest. He grinned triumphantly against her lips, unreasonably glad that she was reciprocating the contact, and shifted his hands back to bury them in her wavy hair. Tali's touch was light, but Poe wouldn't mind if she sank claws into his chest. Somehow, it felt like she already had.

He broke off the kiss reluctantly to rest his forehead against hers. "I'm so glad to hear that. …But now, to bed with you." He slid his hands down to her waist to hoist her into his arms. She gave a small cry of surprise at the abrupt shift as her feet left the ground and brought her arms up around his neck automatically, bracing herself.

Tali shook her head in playful exasperation as he strode towards the bedroom with her in his arms, humming off-key. "You know I can walk just fine, right? …And I wasn't gonna fight you about sleeping arrangements…" Her dry voice lowered into a grumble. "…Much."

 _Suuure, this time._ He raised a skeptical eyebrow as he deposited her on his bed, tumbling down to land half on top of her and bracing himself on his elbows. "I'm not taking any chances." He lowered his face to hers. "Goodnight." He breathed the words against her lips in a kiss. _I'm absolutely going to keep kissing you as long as you keep letting me. ...Please accept my affection._

"Goodnight," she answered, voice quiet and a bit amused in the darkness. She ran a hand lightly through his still-damp hair as he pushed himself away, and he wanted to sink into the soft touch. But he reluctantly rose to head into the other room.

When he reached the couch, Poe collapsed on it with a slight groan, hands scrubbing at his tired and still somewhat drunk face. What was it about this girl's combination of gritty snarkiness and awkward sweetness? He felt a smile curve over his lips of its own accord. She presented an odd mixture of toughness and vulnerability. Safe to say he liked it. _I like her_. Jesus, he felt about fifteen years old. Was it the alcohol? Or was this near-giddy excitement all naturally occurring? _Keep it cool, goddamn._ He'd just scare her off if he came on too strong...

* * *

A muffled, unsettled noise shook Poe out of the less uneasy than usual, alcohol-aided sleep he'd fallen into. Vigilance training half-assedly kicking in, he lifted his head to listen, running a hand through his mussed hair and squinting blearily in confused concentration.

Another small noise. Was that… a whimper? _Tali?_ _Shit._ He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and rose to investigate, half asleep and stumbling slightly as he crept towards his room.

Reaching the doorway, he sucked in a breath. Tali was balled in a tiny, huddled mass on the far edge of his bed. The silvery glow of moonlight filtered through the window, highlighting her trembling form. She mumbled something between a whimper and a quiet sob, and his brows furrowed. _Nightmare?_ He knew only too well how those could be.

Mouth set in a thin line, Poe crossed the room, climbing up to crawl across the bed towards her. Gingerly, he reached out a soothing hand to brush the tangled waves of hair away from her buried face. _Now hopefully she doesn't pull a crashed asshole Dameron and start throwing punches_ … he thought distractedly. Not that he couldn't hold her down… he just didn't want to have to.

Tali flinched away from his light contact, and Poe's heart broke a little. _Oh, no. Please come here._ Murmuring calming words, he drew himself closer, pulling her gently into his chest in an attempt to wake her up calmly rather than abruptly. Her slight frame shook in his arms as she gasped into consciousness, clutching at him.

"Shh, hey, you're okay. I've got you." He spoke softly into her hair, voice slightly rough from sleep. His comforting words apparently working, Tali gradually stopped struggling. She heaved a few breaths, face pressed against his neck.

Poe stroked his hands through her hair as her trembling subsided. Then he leaned back to study her face, pale in the near-darkness. She swallowed convulsively, avoiding his concerned eyes.

"I…" her voice was barely a whisper, and she cleared her throat before continuing, finally meeting his gaze. But her stark eyes still seemed far away. "I burned… so many bodies."

He stared at her a moment before recognition hit. _Wait_ … _Tuanul?_ _Oh, damn._ Poe thought she might've been muttering something about fire… he tightened his arms around her, willing the warmth and comfort of his body to seep into hers. "Hey… oh, Tali. I'm sorry. It's okay. You're okay." _It's not okay, but it's war._

He felt her throat work where it was pressed against his chest, and she shook her head as if to clear it. "…Did I wake you up? I'm sorry." Her words were a mumble.

Poe drew in a ragged breath, one hand soothingly stroking up her back to rest in her mussed hair. "Shh… don't be sorry." He swallowed. "…Tuanul?"

She nodded miserably, limp against him. "The Order killed the villagers. My father…" Her voice grew frustrated, helpless. "They hadn't done anything! But the troopers just… killed them all. There were so many bodies…" she trailed off, and Poe felt her eyelashes flutter closed against his neck. "And I could've been one of them. …Thank you."

His mouth tightened. _Fuck the First Order_. "I'm so sorry. And so glad I was there." He didn't want to think about how easily she could've been killed, could've ended up one more dead body in an unceremonious pile, like so many other innocent victims of the Order. A pang of horror sliced through his gut at the idea, and he unconsciously clutched her tighter, the squeeze forcing her breath out in a whoosh.

Poe apologetically loosened his hold before leaning down to settle her back in the bed, still cradled against him. He smoothed a hand over her hair with a sigh. She was so strangely… delicate, to be a militia fighter... to shoot as unflinchingly as she did. To have burned a pile of bodies. He leaned his forehead wearily against her own, eyes closed. "I wish I could say it'll get better." _But I think, in war, nothing gets better. We all just get worse. And have to learn to live with ourselves somehow._

Tali's response was half sigh, half humorless laugh. Poe brushed his lips against her forehead before rising reluctantly, bracing himself on his arms. He cleared his throat. _Well, this night got a little darker than anticipated._ "You alright?"

She nodded hesitantly, before stopping him with a gentle hand on his elbow. He met her somber gaze. "You could…stay." She swallowed. "…If you want." Her lips quirked, but there was a bleakness in her eyes that Poe could see even in the dark. _Of course I do. Just thought you wouldn't._

He nodded and leaned back down slowly, fighting to keep a neutral expression… he was slightly surprised but undeniably happy at her unanticipated show of trust. He released a breath, a slight smile forcing its way onto his lips. "Come here." _Let me hold you._

Tali shivered slightly as Poe pulled her small frame against his chest, the initial awkward rigidness melting out of her body as he enfolded her in his arms. His eyes drifted closed.

He certainly had his own demons to deal with. But Poe felt sure, as their breathing eased into a natural rhythm together, that any comfort he could provide the confounding woman in his arms would prove just as soothing to his own troubled mind.

She fit too well and felt far too good against him for anything negative to make its way in.


End file.
